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HISTORIA  AMORIS 


By  Mr.  Saltus 

MARY  MAGDALEN 

THE  POMPS  OF  SATAN 

IMPERIAL  PURPLE 

THE  ANATOMY  OF  NEGATION 

THE  PERFUME  OF  EROS 

VANITY  SQUARE 


WORKS  OF   EDGAR   SALTUS 

H  I  S  T  O  R  I  A 
A   M    O    R    I    S 


A  History  of  Love 
Ancient  and  Modern 


BRENTANO'S 

PUBLISHERS         NEW  YORK 


Copyright  1906 

By  EDGAR  SALTUS 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 
THE  PLIMPTON  PR  E  S  S  •  N  O  R  W  O  0  D  •  M  A  S  S 


HISTORIA  AMORIS 


i 


PART  ONE 

I  Super  Flumina  Babylonis  1 

II  The  Curtains  of  Solomon  10 

III  Aphrodite  Urania  28 

IV  Sappho  41 
V  The  Age  of  Aspasia  53 

VI  The  Banquet  65 

VII  Roma-Amor  75 

VIII  Antony  and  Cleopatra  87 

IX  The  Imperial  Orgy  97 

X  Finis  Amoris  110 


921167 


HISTORIA  AMORIS 

PART  TWO 

I    The  Cloister  and  the  Heart  125 

II    The  Pursuivants  of  Love  138 

III  The  Parliaments  of  Joy  150 

IV  The  Doctors  of  the  Gay  Science  164 
V    The  Apotheosis  177 

VI    Bluebeard  191 

VII    The  Renaissance  198 

VIII    Love  in  the  Seventeenth  Century  213 

IX    Love  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  237 

X    The  Law  of  Attraction  251 


HISTORIA  AMORIS 

Part  One 


PART  I 
I 

SUPER  FLUMINA  BABYLONIS 

The  first  created  thing  was  light.  Then  life 
came,  then  death.  In  between  was  fear.  But 
not  love.  Love  was  absent.  In  Eden  there  was 
none.  Adam  and  Eve  emerged  there  adult.  The 
phases  of  the  delicate  fever  which  others  in  para- 
dise since  have  experienced,  left  them  unaffected. 
Instead  of  the  reluctances  and  attractions,  the 
hesitancies  and  aspirations,  the  preliminary  and 
common  conflagrations  which  are  the  beginnings, 
as  they  are  also  the  sacraments,  of  love,  abruptly 
they  were  one.  They  were  married  before  they 
were  mated. 

The  union,  entirely  allegoric — a  Persian  conceit 
— differed,  otherwise,  only  in  the  poetry  of  the 
accessories  from  that  which  elsewhere  actually 
occurred. 

Primitive  man  was  necessarily  speechless,  prob- 
ably simian,  and  certainly  hideous.  Women,  if 
possible  more  hideous  still,  were  joined  by  him 
momentarily  and  immediately  forgot.  Ulti- 
mately, into  the  desolate  poverty  of  the  rudi- 
1 


2  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

mentary  brain  there  crept  a  novelty.  The  novelty 
was  an  idea.  Women  were  detained,  kept  in 
lairs,  made  to  serve  there.  Further  novelties 
ensuing,  creatures  that  had  learned  from  birds  to 
talk  passed  from  animality.  Subsequent  prog- 
ress originated  in  a  theory  that  they  were  very 
clearly  entitled  to  whatever  was  not  taken  away 
from  them.  From  that  theory  all  institutions 
proceed,  primarily  that  of  family. 

In  the  beginning  of  things  woman  was  common 
property.  With  individual  ownership  came  the 
necessity  of  defence.  Man  defended  woman 
against  even  herself.  He  beat  her,  stoned  her, 
killed  her.  From  the  massacre  of  myriads, 
constancy  resulted.  With  it  came  the  home:  a 
hut  in  a  forest,  a  fort  on  a  hill,  in  the  desert  a 
tent,  yet,  wherever  situated,  surrounded  by  foes. 
The  foes  were  the  elements.  In  the  thunderclap 
was  their  anger.  In  the  rustle  of  leaves  their 
threats.  They  were  placatable,  however.  They 
could  be  appeased,  as  human  beings  are,  by 
giving  them  something.  Usually  the  gift  was 
the  sacrifice  of  whatever  the  owner  cared  for 
most;  in  later  days  it  was  love,  pleasure,  sense, 
but  in  these  simpler  times,  when  humanity  knew 
nothing  of  pleasure,  less  of  love,  and  had  no 
sense,  when  the  dominant  sensation  was  fright, 
when  every  object  had  its  spectre,  it  was  accom- 
plished by  the  immolation  of  whatever  the  indi- 


SUPER   FLUMINA   BABYLONIS        3 

vidual  would  have  liked  to  have  had  given  to 
him.  As  intelligence  developed,  distinctions  nec- 
essarily arose  between  the  animate  and  the  inani- 
mate, the  imaginary  and  the  real.  Instead  of 
attributing  a  malignant  spirit  to  every  element, 
the  forces  of  nature  were  conglomerated,  the 
earth  became  an  object  of  worship,  the  sun  an- 
other, that  being  insufficient  they  were  united 
in  nuptials  from  which  the  gods  were  born — 
demons  from  whom  descended  kings  that  were 
sons  of  heaven  and  sovereigns  of  the  world. 

In  the  process,  man,  who  had  begun  by  being 
a  brute,  succeeded  in  becoming  a  lunatic  only  to 
develop  into  a  child.  The  latter  evolution  was, 
at  the  time,  remote.  Only  lunatics  abounded. 
But  lunatics  may  dream.  These  did.  Their 
conceptions  produced  after-effects  curiously  pro- 
found, widely  disseminated,  which,  first  elabor- 
ated by  Chaldaean  seers,  Nineveh  emptied  into 
Babylon. 

Babylon,  Queen  of  the  Orient,  beckoned  by 
Semiramis  out  of  myth,  was  made  by  her  after 
her  image.  That  image  wras  passion.  The  city, 
equivocal  and  immense,  brilliant  as  the  sun,  a 
lighthouse  in  the  surrounding  night,  was  a 
bazaar  of  beauty.  From  the  upper  reaches  of 
the  Euphrates,  through  great  gates  that  were 
never  closed,  Armenia  poured  her  wines  where 
already  Nineveh  had  emptied  her  rites.     In  the 


4  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

conjunction  were  festivals  that  magnetized  the 
stranger  from  afar.  At  the  very  gates  Babylon 
yielded  to  him  her  daughters.  He  might  be  a 
herder,  a  bedouin,  a  bondman;  indifferently  the 
voluptuous  city  embraced  him,  lulled  him  with 
the  myrrh  and  cassia  of  her  caresses,  sheltering 
him  and  all  others  that  came  in  the  folds  of  her 
monstrous  robe. 

In  emptying  rites  into  this  furnace  Nineveh 
also  projected  her  gods,  the  princes  of  the  Chal- 
dsean  sky,  the  lords  of  the  ghostland,  that,  in 
patient  perversities,  her  seers  had  devised.  Four 
thousand  of  them  Babylon  swallowed,  digested, 
reproduced.  Some  were  nebulous,  some  were 
saurian,  many  were  horrible,  all  were  impure. 
But,  chiefly,  there  was  Ishtar.  Semiramis  con- 
quered the  world.     Ishtar  set  it  on  fire. 

Ishtar,  whom  St.  Jerome  generically  and 
graphically  described  as  the  Dea  Meretrix,  was 
known  in  Babylon  as  Mylitta.  Gesenius,  Schra- 
der,  Miinter,  particularly  Quinet,  have  told  of 
the  mysteries,  Asiatically  monstrous,  naively  dis- 
played, through  which  she  passed,  firing  the 
trade  routes  with  the  flame  of  her  face,  adding 
Tyrian  purple  and  Arabian  perfumes  to  her 
incandescent  robe,  trailing  it  from  shore  to  shore, 
enveloping  kingdoms  and  satrapies  in  her  fervid 
embrace,  burning  them  with  the  fever  of  her 
kisses,    burning    them    so    thoroughly,    to    such 


SUPER  FLUMINA  BABYLONIS    5 

ashes,  that  to-day  barely  the  memory  of  their 
names  endures;  multiplying  herself  meanwhile, 
lingering  there  where  she  had  seemed  to  pass, 
developing  from  a  goddess  into  a  pantheon, 
becoming  Astarte  in  Syria,  Tanit  in  Carthage, 
Ashtaroth  in  Canaan,  Anaitis  in  Armenia,  yet 
remaining  always  love,  or,  more  exactly,  what 
was  love  in  those  days. 

In  Babylon,  fronting  her  temple  was  a  grove 
in  which  were  dove-cotes,  cisterns,  conical  stones 
— the  emblems  of  her  worship.  Beyond  were 
little  tents  before  which  girls  sat,  chapleted  with 
cords,  burning  bran  for  perfume,  awaiting  the 
will  of  the  first  that  put  a  coin  in  their  lap  and 
in  the  name  of  the  goddess  invited  them  to  her 
rites.  Acceptance  was  obligatory.  It  was  oblig- 
atory on  all  women  to  stop  in  the  grove  at  least 
once.  Herodotus,  from  whom  these  details  are 
taken,  said  that  the  sojourn  of  those  that 
were  fair  was  brief,  but  others  less  favored 
lingered  vainly,  insulted  by  the  former  as  they 
left.1 

Herodotus  is  father  of  history;  perhaps  too, 
father  of  lies.  But  later  Strabo  substantiated 
his  story.  There  is  anterior  evidence  in  the  Bible. 
There  is  antecedent  testimony  on  a  Nineveh 
brick.  There  is  the  further  corroboration  of 
Justinus,  of  St.  Augustin,  and  of  Eusebius  re- 
Herodotus,  I.,  199. 


6  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

garding  similar  rites  in  Armenia,  in  Phoenicia, 
in  Syria,  wherever  Ishtar  passed.1 

The  forms  of  the  ceremony  and  the  duration 
of  it  varied,  but  the  worship,  always  the  same, 
was  identical  with  that  of  the  Hindu  bayaderes, 
the  Kama-dasi,  literally  servants  of  love,  more 
exactly  servants  of  lust,  who,  for  hire,  yielded 
themselves  to  any  comer,  and  whose  dishonorarium 
the  clergy  took. 

From  Phoenicia  the  worship  passed  to  Greece. 
Among  local  articles  of  commerce  were  girls 
with  whom  the  Phoenicians  furnished  harems. 
One  of  their  agencies  was  at  Cythera.  From 
the  adjacent  waters  Venus  was  rumored  to  have 
emerged.  The  rumor  had  truth  for  basis.  But 
the  emergence  occurred  in  the  form  of  a  stone 
brought  there  on  a  Phoenician  galley.  The  fact, 
cited  by  Maximus  Tyrius,  numismatics  confirm. 
On  the  old  coins  of  Paphos  it  was  as  a  stone  that 
Venus  appeared,  a  stone  emblematic  and  phallic, 
similar  to  those  that  stood  in  the  Babylon   grove. 

Venus  was  even  otherwise  Phoenician.  In 
Semitic  speech  girls  were  called  benoth,  and  at 
Carthage  the  tents  in  which  the  worship  occurred 
were  termed  succoth  benoth.     In  old  texts  B  was 

lStrabo,  XVI.,  xi.,532.  Baruch,  VI.  Justinus,  XVEQ. 
St.  Augustin:  Civit.  Dei,  IV.,  10.  Eusebius:  Vita  Con- 
stantini,  III.,  53-56.  Cf.  Juvenal,  Satir.  9:  Nam  quo 
non  prostat  fenuna  templo? 


SUPER  FLUMINA  BABYLONIS        7 

frequently  changed  to  V.  From  benoth  came 
venoth  and  the  final  theta  being  pronounced,  as 
was  customary,  like  sigma,  venos  resulted  and 
so  appears  on  a  Roman  medal,  that  of  Julia 
Augusta,  wife  of  Septimius  Severus,  where  Venus 
is  written  Venos. 

Meanwhile  on  the  banks  of  the  Indus  the 
stone  reappeared.  Posterior  to  the  Vedic  hymns, 
it  is  not  mentioned  in  them.  Instead  is  the 
revelation  of  a  being  purer  than  purity,  excelling 
excellence,  dwelling  apart  from  life,  apart  from 
death,  ineffably  in  the  solitudes  of  space.  He 
alone  was.  The  gods  were  not  yet.  They,  the 
earth,  the  sky,  the  forms  of  matter  and  of  man, 
slept  in  the  depths  of  the  ideal,  from  which  at 
his  will  they  arose.  That  will  was  love.  The 
Mahabharata  is  its  history. 

There,  succeeding  the  clamor  of  primal  life, 
come  the  songs  of  shepherds,  the  footfall  of 
apsaras,  the  murmur  of  rhapsodies,  of  kisses  and 
harps.  The  pages  turn  to  them.  Then  follow 
eremites  in  their  hermitages,  rajahs  in  their  pal- 
aces, chiefs  in  their  chariots,  armies  of  elephants 
and  men,  seas  of  blood,  gorgeous  pomps,  gigantic 
flowers,  marvels  and  enchantments.  Above, 
on  thrones  of  lotos  and  gold,  are  the  serene 
and  apathetic  gods,  limitless  in  power,  com- 
plete in  perfection,  unalterable  in  felicity,  need- 
ing   nothing,    having  all.       Evil    may   not    ap- 


8  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

proaeh  them.  Nonexistent  in  infinity,  evil  is 
circumscribed  within  the  halls  of  time.  The 
appanage  of  the  gods  was  love,  its  revelation 
light. 

That  light  must  have  been  too  pure.  Sub- 
sequent theology  decomposed  it.  In  its  stead 
was  provided  a  glare  intolerably  crude  that  dis- 
closed divinities  approachable  in  deliriums  of 
disorder,  in  unions  from  which  reason  had 
fled,  to  which  love  could  not  come,  and  on 
which,  in  a  sort  of  radiant  imbecility,  idols 
semi-Chaldsean,  polycephalous,  hundred-armed, 
obese,  monstrous,  revolting,  stared  with  unseeing 
eyes. 

In  the  Vedas  there  is  much  that  is  absurd  and 
more  that  is  puerile.  The  Mahabharata  is  a 
fairy-tale,  interminable  and  very  dull.  But  in 
none  of  these  works  is  there  any  sanction  of  the 
pretensions  of  a  priesthood  to  degrade.  It  was 
in  the  name  of  waters  that  slake,  of  fire  that 
purifies,  of  air  that  regenerates,  of  gods  dwelling 
not  in  images  but  in  infinity,  that  love  was  in- 
voked. It  was  in  poetry,  not  in  perversions,  that 
marriage  occurred.  In  the  Laws  of  Manu 
marriage  is  defined  as  the  union  of  celestial 
musicians, — music  then  as  now  being  regarded 
as  the  food  of  love. 

The  Buddhist  Scriptures  contain  passages 
that  were  said  to  charm  the  birds  and  beasts. 


SUPER  FLUMINA   BABYLONIS        9 

In  the  Vedas  there  are  passages  which,  if  a  soudra 
overheard,  the  ignominy  of  his  caste  was  abol- 
ished. The  poetry  that  resided  in  them,  a 
poetry  often  childish,  but  primal,  preceding  the 
Pentateuch,  purer  than  it,  chronologically  an- 
terior to  Chaldeean  aberrations,  Brahmanism 
deformed  into  rites  that  sanctified  vice  and  did 
so,  on  a  theory  common  to  many  faiths,  that  the 
gods  demand  the  surrender  of  whatever  is  most 
dear,  if  it  be  love  that  must  be  sacrificed,  if  it  be 
decency  that  must  be  renounced.  The  latter 
refinement  which  Chaldsea  invented,  and  India 
retained,  Judsea  reviled. 


n 

THE  CURTAINS   OF  SOLOMON 

In  the  deluge  women  must  have  been  swept 
wholly  away.  If  not,  then  they  became  beings 
to  whom  genealogy  was  indifferent.  The  long 
list  of  Noah's  descendants,  which  Genesis  pro- 
vides, contains  no  mention  of  them.  When 
ultimately  they  reappear,  their  consistency  is 
that  of  silhouettes.  It  is  as  though  they  be- 
longed to  an  inferior  order.  Historically  they 
did. 

Woman  was  not  honored  in  Judsea.  The 
patriarch  was  chieftain  and  priest.  His  tent 
was  visited  by  angels,  occasionally  by  creatures 
less  beatific.  In  spite  of  the  terrible  pomps 
that  surrounded  the  advent  of  the  decalogue, 
there  subsisted  for  his  eternal  temptation  the 
furnace  of  Moloch  and  Baal's  orgiastic  nights. 
These  things — in  themselves  corruptions  of  Chal- 
daean  ceremonies — woman  personified.  Woman 
incarnated  sin.  It  was  she  who  had  invented 
it.  To  Ecclesiasticus,  the  evil  of  man  excelled 
her    virtue.     To    Moses,  she    was    dangerously 


THE   CURTAINS   OF  SOLOMON     11 

impure.  In  Leviticus,  her  very  birth  was  a 
shame.  To  Solomon,  she  was  more  bitter  than 
death.  As  a  consequence,  the  attitude  of  woman 
generally  was  as  elegiac  as  that  of  Jephthah's 
daughter.  When  she  appeared  it  was  but  to 
vanish.  In  betrothals  there  was  but  a  bride- 
groom that  asked  and  a  father  that  gave.  The 
bride  was  absent  or  silent.  As  a  consequence, 
also,  the  heroine  was  rare.  Of  the  great  nations 
of  antiquity,  Israel  produced  fewer  notable 
women  than  any  other.  Yet,  that,  it  may  be, 
was  by  way  of  precaution,  in  order  to  reserve  the 
strength  of  a  people  for  the  presentation  of  one 
who,  transcending  all,  was  to  reign  in  heaven 
to  the  genuflections  of  the  earth. 

Meanwhile,  conjointly  with  Baal  and  Moloch, 
Ishtar — known  locally  as  Ashtaroth — circum- 
adjacently  ruled.  At  a  period  when  these  ab- 
stractions were  omnipresent,  when  their  temples 
were  thronged,  when  their  empires  seemed  built 
for  all  time,  the  Hebrew  prophets,  who  contin- 
uously reviled  them,  foretold  that  they  would 
pass  and  with  them  the  gods,  dogmas,  states 
that  they  sustained.  So  promptly  were  the 
prophecies  fulfilled  that  they  must  have  sounded 
like  the  heraldings  of  the  judgment  of  God. 
But  it  may  be  that  foreknowledge  of  the  future 
rested  on  a  consciousness  of  the  past. 

There,    in    the    desert,    had   stood   a    bedouin 


12  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

preparing  the  tenets  of  a  creed;  in  the  remoter 
past  a  shadow  in  which  there  was  lightning, 
then  the  splendor  of  the  first  dawn  where  the  future 
opened  like  a  book,  and,  in  that  grammar  of  the 
eternal,  the  promise  of  an  age  of  gold.  Through 
the  echo  of  succeeding  generations  came  the 
rumor  of  the  impulse  that  drew  the  world  in  its 
flight.  The  bedouin  had  put  the  desert  behind 
him  and  stared  at  another,  the  sea.  As  he 
passed,  the  land  leaped  into  life.  There  were 
tents  and  passions,  clans  not  men,  an  aggregate 
of  forces  in  which  the  unit  disappeared.  For 
chieftain  there  was  Might  and,  above,  were  the 
subjects  of  impersonal  verbs,  the  Elohim,  from 
whom  the  thunder  came,  the  rain,  darkness  and 
light,  death  and  birth,  dream  too,  nightmare  as 
well.  The  clans  migrated.  Goshen  called.  In 
its  heart  Chaldsea  spoke.  The  Elohim  vanished 
and  there  was  El,  the  one  great  god  and  Isra-el, 
the  great  god's  elect.  From  heights  that  lost 
themselves  in  immensity,  the  ineffable  name, 
incommunicable,  and  never  to  be  pronounced, 
was  seared  by  forked  flames  on  a  tablet  of  stone. 
A  nation  learned  that  El  was  Jehovah,  that  they 
were  in  his  charge,  that  he  was  omnipotent,  that 
the  world  was  theirs.  They  had  a  law,  a  cove- 
nant, a  deity  and,  as  they  passed  into  the  lands  of 
the  well  beloved,  the  moon  became  their  servant, 
to  aid  them  the  sun  stood  still.     The  terror  of 


THE   CURTAINS  OF  SOLOMON      13 

Sinai  gleamed  from  their  breast-plates.  Men 
could  not  see  their  faces  and  live.  They  en- 
croached and  conquered.  They  had  a  home, 
then  a  capital,  where  David  founded  a  line  of 
kings  and  Solomon,  the  city  of  God. 

Solomon,  typically  satrapic,  living  in  what 
then  was  splendor;  surrounded  by  peacocks  and 
peris;  married  to  the  daughter  of  a  pharaoh, 
married  to  many  another  as  well;  the  husband 
of  seven  hundred  queens,  the  pasha  of  three 
hundred  favorites,  doing,  as  perhaps  a  poet  may, 
only  what  pleased  him,  capricious  as  potentates 
are,  voluptuous  as  sovereigns  were,  on  his  blaz- 
ing throne  and  particularly  in  his  aromatic  harem, 
presented  a  spectacle  strange  in  Israel,  wholly 
Babylonian,  thoroughly  sultanesque.  To  local 
austerity  his  splendor  was  an  affront,  his  ser- 
aglio a  sin,  the  memory  of  both  became  odious, 
and  in  the  Song  of  Songs,  which,  canonically, 
was  attributed  to  him,  but  which  the  higher 
criticism  has  shown  to  be  an  anonymous  work, 
that  contempt  was  expressed. 

Something  else  was  expressed.  The  Song  of 
Songs  is  the  gospel  of  love.  Humanity  at  the 
time  was  sullen  when  not  base.  Nowhere  was 
there  love.  The  anterior  stories  of  Jacob  and 
Rachel,  of  Rebekah  and  Isaac,  of  Boaz  and  Ruth, 
are  little  novels,  subsequently  evolved,  concern- 
ing people  that  had  lived  long  before  and  prob- 


14  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

ably  never  lived  at  all.  To  scholars  they  are 
wholly  fabulous.  Even  otherwise,  these  legends 
do  not,  when  analyzed,  disclose  love.  Ruth  her- 
self with  her  magnificent  phrase — "Where  thou 
goest,  I  will  go;  and  where  thou  lodgest,  I  will 
lodge;  thy  people  shall  be  my  people,  and  thy 
God  my  God," — does  not  display  it.  Histori- 
cally its  advent  is  in  the  Song  of  Songs. 

The  poem,  perhaps  originally  a  pastoral  in 
dialogue  form,  but  more  probably  a  play,  has, 
for  central  situation,  the  love  of  a  peasant  for  a 
shepherd,  a  love  tender  and  true,  stronger  than 
death,  stronger  at  least  than  a  monarch's  will. 
The  scene,  laid  three  thousand  years  ago  in 
Solomon's  seraglio,  represents  the  triumph  of 
constancy  over  corruption,  the  constancy  of  a 
girl,  unique  in  her  day,  who  resisted  a  king, 
preferring  a  hovel  to  his  harem.  In  an  epoch 
more  frankly  unmoral  than  any  of  which  history 
has  cognizance,  this  girl,  a  native  of  Shulam, 
very  simple,  very  ignorant,  necessarily  unrefined, 
possessed,  through  some  miracle,  that  instinctive 
exclusiveness  which,  subsequently  disseminated 
and  ingrained,  refurbished  the  world.  She  was 
the  usher  of  love.  The  Song  of  Songs,  interpreted 
mystically  by  the  Church  and  profanely  by  scho- 
lars,, is  therefore  sacred.  It  is  the  first  evangel  of 
the  heart. 

From  the  existing  text,  the  original  plan,  and 


THE   CURTAINS   OF  SOLOMON     15 

with  it  the  original  meaning,  have  disappeared. 
Many  exegetes,  notably  Ewald,  have  demon- 
strated that  the  disappearance  is  due  to  manipu- 
lations and  omissions,  and  many  others,  Renan  in 
particular,  have  attempted  reconstructions.  The 
version  here  given  is  based  on  his.1  From  it  a 
few  expressions,  no  longer  in  conformity  with 
modern  taste,  and  several  passages,  otherwise 
redundant,  have  been  omited.  By  way  of  proem 
it  may  be  noted  that  the  Shulamite,  previously 
abducted  from  her  native  village — a  hamlet  to 
the  north  of  Jerusalem — is  supposed  to  be  for- 
cibly brought  into  the  presence  of  the  king  whece, 
however,  she  has  thought  only  of  her  lover. 

THE  SONGS  OF  SONGS. 
Act  I. 

Solomon,  in  all  His  Glory,  Surrounded  by 
His  Seraglio  and  His  Guards. 

An  Odalisque 
Let  him  kiss  me  with  the  kisses  of  his  mouth. 

Chorus  or  Odalisques 

Thy  love  is  better  than  delicious  wine.  Thy 
name  is  ointment  poured  forth.  Therefore  do 
we  love  thee. 

1  Renan:   Le  Cantique  des  Cantiques. 


16  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

The  Shulamite 

(forcibly  introduced,  speaking  to  her  absent  lover.) 

The  King  hath  brought  me  into  his  chamber. 
Draw  me  away,  we  will  go  together. 

The  Odalisques 

(to  Solomon.) 

The  upright  love  thee.  We  will  be  glad  and 
rejoice  in  thee.  We  will  remember  thy  love 
more  than  wine. 

The  Shulamite 

(to  the  Odalisques.) 

I  am  black  but  comely,  O  ye  daughters  of 
Jerusalem,  comely  as  the  tents  of  Kedar,  as  the 
curtains  of  Solomon.  Do  not  disdain  me  be- 
cause I  am  a  little  black.  It  is  the  sun  that  has 
burned  me.  My  mother's  children  were  angry 
at  me.  They  made  me  keeper  of  the  vineyards. 
Alas!  mine  own  vineyard  I  have  not  kept. 

(Thinking  of  her  absent  lover.) 

Tell  me,  O  thou  whom  my  soul  loveth,  where 
thou  takest  thy  flocks  to  rest  at  noon  that  I  may 
not  wander  among  the  flocks  of  thy  comrades. 

An  Odalisque 

If  thou  knowest  not,  O  thou  fairest  among 
women,  follow  the  flock  and  feed  thy  kids  by 
the  shepherds'  tents. 


THE   CURTAINS  OF  SOLOMON      17 

Solomon 
(to  the  Shulamite.) 
To  my  horse,  when  harnessed  to  the  chariot 
that  Pharaoh  sent  me,  I  compare  thee,  O  my 
love.  Thy  cheeks  are  comely  with  rows  of 
pearls,  thy  neck  with  charms  of  coral.  We  will 
make  for  thee  necklaces  of  gold,  studded  with 
silver. 

The  Shulamite 

(aside.) 

While  the  King  sitteth  at  his  divan,  my  spike- 
nard perfumes  me  and  to  me  my  beloved  is  a 
bouquet  of  myrrh,  unto  me  he  is  as  a  cluster  of 
cypress  in  the  vines  of  Engedi. 

Solomon 

Yes,  thou  art  fair,  my  beloved.  Yes,  thou 
art  fair.     Thine  eyes  are  the  eyes  of  a  dove. 

The  Shulamite 
(thinking  of  the  absent  one.) 

Yes,  thou  art  fair,  my  beloved.  Yes,  thou  art 
charming,  and  our  tryst  is  a  litter  of  green. 

Solomon 
(to  whom  constancy  has  no  meaning.) 

The  beams  of  our  house  are  cedar  and  our 
rafters  of  fir. 
2 


18  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

The  Shulamite 
(singing.) 
I  am  the  rose  of  Sharon 
The  lily  of  the  valley  am  I. 

(Enter  suddenly  the  Shepherd.) 

The  Shepherd 
As  a  lily  among  thorns,  so  is  my  love  among 
daughters. 

The  Shulamite 

(running  to  him.) 
As  is  the  apple  among  fruit,  so  is  my  beloved 
among  men.  In  delight  I  have  sat  in  his  shadow 
and  his  savor  was  sweet  to  my  taste.  He  brought 
me  to  the  banquet  hall  and  put  o'er  me  the 
banner  of  love. 

(Turning  to  the  Odalisques.) 
Stay  me  with  wine,  strengthen  me  with  fruit, 
for  I  am  swooning  with  love. 
(Half -fainting  she  falls  in  the  Shepherd's  arms.) 
His  left  hand  is  under  my  head  and  his  right 
hand  doth  embrace  me. 

The  Shepherd 

(to  the  Odalisques.) 

I  charge  you,  O  ye  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  by 
the  roes  and  the  hinds  of  the  field,  that  ye  stir  not, 
nor  awake  my  beloved  till  she  will. 


THE   CURTAINS   OF  SOLOMON     19 

The  Shulamite 
(dreaming  in  the  Shepherd's  arms.) 
My  own  love's  voice.     Arise,  my  fair  one,  he 
tells  me,  arise  and  let  us  go.   .   .  . 

The  Shepherd 

I  charge  you,  O  ye  daughters  of  Jerusalem, 
that  ye  stir  not,  nor  awake  my  beloved  till  she  will. 
(Solomon  motions;  the  Shepherd  is  removed.) 

Act  II. 

A  Street  in  Jerusalem. 
In  the  distance  is  Solomon  and  his  retinue. 

Chorus  of  Men 
Who  is  this  that  cometh  out  of  the  wilderness, 
exhaling  the  odor  of  myrrh  and  of  frankincense 
and  all  the  powders  of  the  perfumer  ? 

(Solomon  and  his  retinue  advance.) 

First  Jerusalemite 
Behold    the    palanquin    of    Solomon.     Three 
score  valiant  men  are  about  it.     They  all  hold 
swords.  .  .  . 

Second  Jerusalemite 

King  Solomon  has  had  made  for  him  a  litter 
of  Lebanon  wood.  The  supports  are  of  silver, 
the  bottom  of  gold,  the  covering  of  purple.     In 


20  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

the  centre  is  a  loved  one,  chosen  from  among 
the  daughters  of  Jerusalem. 

The  Chorus 
(calling  to  women  in  the  houses.) 

Come  forth,  daughters  of  Zion,  and  behold  the 
King.  .  . 

Act   III. 

The  Seraglio. 

Solomon 
(to  the  Shulamite.) 

Yes,  thou  art  fair,  my  love,  yes,  thou  art  fair. 
Thou  hast  dove's  eyes.  .  .  .  Thou  art  all  fair, 
my  love.     There  is  no  spot  on  thee. 

The  Shepherd 

(without,  in  the  garden,  calling  to  the  Shulamite 
and  referring  in  veiled  terms  to  the  seraglio  and 
its  dangers.) 

Come  to  me,  my  betrothed,  come  to  me  from 
Lebanon.  Look  at  me  from  the  top  of  Amana, 
from  the  summit  of  Shenir  and  Hermon,  from 
the  lion's  den  and  the  mountain  of  leopards. 

(The  Shulamite  goes  to   a   window   and  looks 

out.) 


THE  CURTAINS  OF  SOLOMON     21 

The  Shepherd 

You  have  strengthened  my  heart,  my  sister 
betrothed,  you  have  strengthened  my  heart  with 
one  of  thine  eyes,  with  one  of  the  curls  that  float 
on  thy  neck.  How  dear  is  thy  love,  my  sister 
betrothed !  Thy  caresses  are  better  than  wine, 
and  the  fragrance  of  thy  garments  is  sweeter 
than  spice. 

The  Shulamite 

Let  my  beloved  come  into  his  garden  and  eat 
its  pleasant  fruits. 

The  Shepherd 
I  am  come  into  my  garden,  my  sister  betrothed, 
I  have   gathered   my  myrrh  with   my  spice.     I 
have  eaten  my  honeycomb  with  my  honey.     I 
have  drunk  my  wine  with  my  milk. 
(To  the  chorus.) 
Eat,  comrades,  drink  abundantly,  friends. 
(The  Shepherd  and  the  chorus  withdraw.) 

Act   IV. 
The  Seraglio. 

The  Shulamite 

(musing.) 

I  sleep  but  my  heart  waketh.     I  heard  the 
voice  of  my  beloved.     He  knocked.     Open  to 


22  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

me!  he  said.  My  sister,  my  love,  my  immacu- 
late dove,  open  to  me,  for  my  head  is  covered  with 
dew,  the  locks  of  my  hair  are  wet  ...  I  rose 
to  open  to  my  beloved  .  .  .  but  he  was  gone. 
My  soul  faileth  me  when  he  spoke  not.  I  sought 
him,  but  I  could  not  find  him.  I  called  him  but 
he  did  not  reply. 
(A  pause.     She  relates  the  story  oj  her  abduction.) 

The  watchman  that  went  about  the  city  found 
me,  they  smote  me,  they  wounded  me,  and  the 
keepers  of  the  walls  took  away  my  veil. 
(To  the  Odalisques.) 

I  pray  you,  O  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  if  you 
find  my  beloved,  tell  him  that  I  die  of  love. 

Chorus  of  Odalisques 
In  what  is  the  superiority  of  thy  lover,  O  pearl 
among  women,  that  thou  beseechest  us  so  ? 

The  Shulamite 

My  beloved's  skin  is  white  and  ruddy.  He  is 
one  in  a  thousand.  .  .  .  His  eyes  are  as  doves. 
.  .  .  His  cheeks  are  a  bed  of  flowers.  .  .  .  He 
is  charming.  Such  is  my  beloved,  such  is  my 
dear  one,  O  daughters  of  Jerusalem. 

Chorus  of  Odalisques 

Whither  is  thy  beloved  gone,  O  pearl  among 
women?  Which  way  did  he  turn,  that  we  may 
seek  him  with  thee  ? 


THE  CURTAINS   OF  SOLOMON     23 

The  Shulamite 

My  beloved  is  gone  from  the  garden.  .  .  . 
But  I  am  his  and  he  is  mine.  He  feedeth  his 
flocks  among  lilies. 

(Enter  Solomon.) 
(The  Shulamite  looks  scornfully  at  him.) 

Solomon 
Thou  art  beautiful  as   Tirzah,  my  love,  and 
comely  as  Jerusalem,  but  terrible  as  an  army  in 
battle.     Turn   thine   eyes   away.     They   trouble 
me.  .  .   . 

The  Shepherd 
(from  without.) 

There  are  sixty  queens,  eighty  favorites,  and 
numberless  young  girls.  But  among  them  all 
my  immaculate  dove  is  unique,  she  is  the  darling 
of  her  mother.  The  young  girls  have  seen  her 
and  called  her  blessed.  The  queens  and  the 
favorites  have  praised  her. 

The  Chorus 

(astonished  at  the  Shulamite's  scorn  of  the  King.) 

Who  is  it  that  is  beautiful  as  Tirzah  but  terrible 
as  an  army  in  battle  ? 

The  Shulamite 
(impatiently    turning    her     back,     and    relating 
again  her  abduction.) 
I  went  down  into  the  garden  of  nuts,  to  see  the 


24  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

green  plants  in  the  valley,  to  see  whether  the  vine 
budded,  and  the  pomegranates  were  in  flower. 
But  before  I  was  aware  of  it,  I  was  among  the 
chariots  of  my  princely  people. 

The  Chorus 

Turn  about,  turn  again,  O  Shulamite,  that  we 
may  see  thee. 

A  Dancer 

What  will  you  see  in  the  Shulamite  whom  the 
King  has  compared  to  an  army? 

Solomon 
(to  the  Shulamite.) 

How  beautiful  are  thy  feet,  prince's  daughter, 
.    .  .  How  fair  and  how  pleasant  art  thou.   .   .  . 

The  Shulamite 
(impatiently  as  before.) 
I  am  my  beloved's  and  he  is  sighing  for  me. 
(Exit  Solomon.   Enter  the  Shepherd.) 

The  Shulamite 

(hastening  to  her  lover.) 

Come,  my  beloved,  let  us  go  forth  to  the  fields, 
let  us  lodge  in  the  villages.  We  will  rise  early  and 
see  if  the  vine  flourishes  and  the  grape  is  ripe 
and  the  pomegranates  bud.  There  will  I  caress 
thee.     The  love-apples   perfume  the  air  and  at 


THE   CURTAINS   OF  SOLOMON     25 

our  gates  are  all  manner  of  rich  fruit,  new  and 
old,  which  I  have  kept  for  thee,  my  beloved. 
Oh,  that  thou  wert  my  brother,  that,  when  I  am 
with  thee  without,  I  might  kiss  thee  and  not  be 
mocked  at.  I  want  to  take  and  bring  thee  into 
my  mother's  house.  There  thou  shalt  instruct 
me  and  I  will  give  thee  spiced  wine  and  the 
juice  of  my  pomegranates. 

(Falling  in  his  arms    and  calling  to  the 
Odalisques.) 

His  left  hand  is  under  my  head  and  his  right 
hand  doth  embrace  me. 

The  Shepherd 
(to  the  chorus.) 

I  charge  you,  O  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  that 
ye  stir  not  nor  awake  my  beloved  till  she  will. 


Act  V. 

The  Village  of  Shulam. 

(The  Shulamite,  who  has  escaped  from  the  se- 
raglio is  carried  in  by  her  lover.) 

Chorus  of  Villagers 

Who  is  this  that  cometh  up  from  the  wilderness, 
leaning  upon  her  beloved  ? 


26  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

The  Shepherd 
(to  the  Shulamite.) 

I  awake  thee  under  the  apple  tree. 
(He  points  to  the  house.) 
There  thou  wert  born. 

The  Shulamite 

Set  me  as  a  seal  upon  thy  heart,  as  a  seal  upon 
thine  arm;  for  love  is  strong  as  death,  jealousy 
cruel  as  the  grave;  the  flashes  thereof  are  flashes 
of  fire,  a  very  flame  of  the  Lord.  But  many 
waters  cannot  quench  love,  nor  can  the  floods 
drown  it.  The  man  who  seeks  to  purchase  it 
acquires  but  contempt. 

EPILOGUE. 

A  Cottage  at  Shulam. 

First  Brother  of  the  Shulamite 

(thinking  of  a  younger  sister  whom  he  would  sell 
when  she  is  older.) 

We  have  a  little  sister,  still  immature.  What 
shall  we  do  with  her  when  she  is  spoken  for? 

Second  Brother 

If  by  then  she  is  comely,  we  will  get  for  her 
silver  from  a  palace.  If  she  is  not  comely,  we 
will  get  the  value  of  cedar  boards. 


THE  CURTAINS  OF  SOLOMON     27 

The  Shulamite 

{ironically  intervening. ) 

I  am  comely,  yet  I  made  them  let  me  be. 

First  Brother 
(significantly.) 

Solomon  had  a  vineyard  at  Baal-hamon.  He 
leased  it  to  farmers  each  of  whom  was  to  pay  him 
a  thousand  pieces  of  silver. 

The  Shulamite 

But  my  vineyard  which  is  mine  I  still  have. 

{Laughing.) 

A  thousand  pieces  for  thee,  Solomon,  and  two 
hundred  for  the  others. 

{At   the    door  the   Shepherd    appears.     Behind 
him  are  comrades.) 

The  Shepherd 

Fair  one,  that  dwelleth  here,  my  companions 
hearken  to  thy  voice,  cause  me  to  hear  it. 

The  Shulamite 

Hasten  to  me,  my  beloved.  Hasten  like  a  roe 
or  a  young  hart  on  the  mountains  of  spices. 


Ill 

APHRODITE    URANIA 

Greece  had  many  creeds,  yet  but  one  religion. 
That  was  Beauty.  Israel  believed  in  hate,  Greece 
in  love.  In  Judaea  the  days  of  the  righteous  were 
long.  In  Greece  they  were  brief.  Whom  the 
gods  loved  died  young.  The  gods  themselves 
were  young.  With  the  tribes  that  took  possession 
of  the  Hellenic  hills  they  came  in  swarms.  Sprung 
from  the  depths  of  the  archaic  skies,  they  were 
sombre  and  impure.  When  they  reached  Olym- 
pus already  their  Asiatic  masks  had  fallen.  He- 
cate was  hideous,  Hephsestos  limped,  but  among 
the  others  not  an  imperfection  remained.  Di- 
vested of  attributes  monstrous  and  enigmatic,  they 
rejuvenated  into  divinities  of  joy.  Homer  said 
that  their  laughter  was  inextinguishable.  He 
joined  in  it.  So  did  Greece.  The  gayety  of  the 
immortals  was  appreciated  by  a  people  that 
counted  their  years  by  their  games. 

As  the  tribes  dispersed  the  gods  advanced. 
Their  passage,  marked  here  by  a  temple,  there  by 
a  shrine,  had  always  the  incense  of  legends.  These 
Homer  gathered  and  from  them  formed  a  Penta- 


APHRODITE   URANIA  29 

teuch  in  which  dread  was  replaced  by  the  ideal. 
Divinities,  whom  the  Assyrian  priests  barely  dared 
to  invoke  by  name,  and  whose  mention  by  the  laity 
was  forbidden,  he  displayed,  luminous  and  indul- 
gent, lifting,  as  he  did  so,  the  immense  burden  of 
mystery  and  fear  under  which  humanity  had 
staggered.  Homer  turned  religion  into  art,  belief 
into  poetry.  He  evolved  a  creed  that  was  more 
gracious  than  austere,  more  aesthetic  perhaps  than 
moral,  but  which  had  the  signal  merit  of  creating 
a  serenity  from  which  contemporaneous  civiliza- 
tion proceeds.  Greece  to-day  lies  buried  with 
her  gods.  She  has  been  dead  for  twenty  cen- 
turies and  over.  But  the  beauty  of  which  she 
was  the  temple  existed  before  death  did  and  sur- 
vived her. 

To  Homer  beauty  was  an  article  of  faith.  But 
not  the  divinities  that  radiated  it.  He  laughed 
at  them.  Pythagoras  found  him  expiating  his 
mirth  in  hell.  A  later  echo  of  it  bubbled  in  the 
farce  of  Aristophanes.  It  reverberated  in  the 
verses  of  Euripides.  It  rippled  through  the  gar- 
dens of  Epicurus.  It  amused  sceptics  to  whom 
the  story  of  the  gods  and  their  amours  was  but 
gossip  concerning  the  elements.  They  believed 
in  them  no  more  than  we  do.  But  they  lived 
among  a  people  that  did.  To  the  Greeks  the 
gods  were  real,  they  were  neighborly,  they  were 
careless   and   caressing,   subject   like   mortals   to 


30  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

fate.  From  them  gifts  came,  desires  as  well. 
The  latter  idea,  precocious  in  its  naive  psychology, 
eliminated  human  responsibility  and  made  sin 
descend  from  above. 

Olympus  was  not  severe.  Greece  was  not, 
either.  The  solemnity  of  other  faiths  had  no 
place  in  her  creed,  which  was  free,  too,  of  their 
baseness.  It  was  not  Homer  only,  but  the  inher- 
ent Hellenic  love  of  the  beautiful  that,  in  emanci- 
pating her  from  Orientalisms,  maintained  her  in 
an  attitude  which,  while  never  ascetic,  occasion- 
ally was  sublime.  The  tradition  of  Orpheus  and 
Eurydice,  the  fable  of  Psyche  and  her  god,  had  in 
them  love,  which  nowhere  else  was  known.  They 
had,  too,  something  of  the  high  morality  which 
the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  depict. 

In  the  Iliad  a  thousand  ships  are  launched  for 
the  recovery  of  an  abducted  wife.  The  subject 
is  equivocal,  but  concerning  it  there  is  not  a  dubi- 
ous remark.  In  the  Iliad  as  in  the  Odyssey  love 
rested  on  two  distinct  principles:  First,  the  re- 
spect of  natural  law;  second,  the  respect  of  law- 
ful marriage.  These  principles,  the  gods,  if  they 
willed,  could  abolish.  When  they  did,  their  vic- 
tims were  not  blamed,  they  were  pitied.  Chris- 
tianity could  not  do  better.  Frequently  it  failed 
to  do  as  well.  But  the  patricists  were  not  psy- 
chologists and  the  theory  of  determinism  had 
not  come. 


APHRODITE   URANIA  31 

Aphrodite  had.  With  love  for  herald,  with 
pleasure  for  page,  with  the  Graces  and  the  Hours 
for  handmaids,  she  had  come  among  the  dazzled 
immortals.     Hesiod   told   about   it.     So   did   de 

Musset. 

Regrettez-vous  le  temps  oii  le  Ciel,  sur  la  terre, 
Marchait  et  respirait  dans  un  peuple  de  dieux  ? 
Ou  Venus  Astarte,  fille  de  l'onde  amere, 
Secouait,  vierge  encor,  les  larmes  de  sa  mere, 
Et  fecondait  le  monde  en  tordant  ses  cheveux! 

But  Astarte  was  a  stone  which  Aphrodite's 
eyes  would  have  melted.  It  may  be  that  they 
did.  The  worship  of  the  Dea  Meretrix  was 
replaced  by  the  purer  rites  of  this  purer  divinity, 
unconscious  as  yet  of  the  names  and  shames  of 
Ishtar. 

The  Aphrodite  whom  Homer  revealed  differed 
from  that  of  Hesiod.  In  Hesiod  she  was  still  a 
novice,  but  less  austere  than  she  afterward  ap- 
peared in  the  conceptions  of  Pheidias.  The 
latter  succeeded  in  detaining  the  fluidity  of  the 
gods.  He  reproduced  them  in  stone,  sometimes 
in  gold,  always  in  beauty.  He  created  a  palpa- 
ble Olympus.  To  die  without  seeing  it  was 
thought  a  great  calamity.  The  universal  judg- 
ment of  antiquity  was  that  art  could  go  no  higher. 
At  the  sight  of  the  Pheidian  Zeus,  a  barbarian 
brute,  iEmilius  Paulus,  the  Roman  invader  and 
victor,    shrank    back,  awe  struck,  smitten    with 


32  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

sacred  terror.  The  image  was  regarded  less  as  a 
statue  than  as  an  actual  revelation  of  the  divine. 
To  have  been  able  to  display  it,  the  general  as- 
sumption was  that  either  Pheidias  had  ascended 
above,  or  else  that  Zeus  had  descended  to  him. 
The  revelation  of  Aphrodite  Urania  which  he 
effected  for  her  temple  near  the  Cerameicus  must 
have  been  equally  august,  the  celestial  in  its  su- 
premest  expression. 

Thereafter  the  decadence  of  the  goddess  began. 
Previously  she  had  ruled  through  her  perfection. 
Subsequently,  though  the  perfection  persisted,  the 
stamp  of  divinity  ceased.  In  lieu  of  the  goddess 
was  a  very  pretty  woman.  If  that  woman  did 
not,  as  Hesiod  claimed,  issue  from  the  sea,  she  at 
least  emerged  from  marble.  The  statues  differed. 
Sometimes  there  were  doves  on  them,  sometimes 
there  was  a  girdle  embroidered  with  caresses  and 
kisses,  at  times  in  the  hand  was  an  arrow,  at  others 
a  lance,  again  Aphrodite  was  twisting  her  hair. 
But  chiefly  she  was  assassinated,  not  like  Lais  by 
jealous  wives,  but  by  sheer  freedom  of  the  chisel. 
It  was  these  profaner  images  that  inflamed  Phsedra 
and  Pasiphae.  Among  them  was  Praxiteles' 
Cnidian  Aphrodite,  a  statue  which  a  king  tried 
vainly  to  buy  and  a  madman  offered  to  marry. 
The  Pheidian  Aphrodite  belonged  to  an  epoch  in 
which  art  expressed  the  eternal;  the  Praxitelean, 
to  a  period  in  which  it  suggested  the  fugitive. 


APHRODITE  URANIA  33 

One  was   beauty  and  also  love,  the  other  was 
beauty  and  passion. 

Originally  both  were  one.  It  was  only  the  idea 
of  her  that  varied.  Each  Hellenic  town,  each  up- 
land and  valley  had  its  own  faiths,  its  own  myths. 
Uniformity  concerning  them  was  not  doctrinal,  it 
was  ritualistic.  Then,  too,  Aphrodite,  Apollo, 
Zeus  himself,  the  whole  brilliant  host  of  Olympus 
were  once  monsters  of  Asia.  However  august 
they  had  since  become,  memories  and  savors  of 
anterior  rites  followed  in  their  ascensions.  These 
things  incited  them  to  resume  their  primal  forms. 
It  was  pleasurably  that  they  acceded.  Therein 
is  the  simple  mystery  of  their  double  lives,  the 
reason  why  Aphrodite  could  be  degrading  and 
ideal,  celestial  and  vulgar,  yet  always  Philom- 
meis,  Queen  of  Smiles.  In  Cythera  and  Paphos 
she  was  but  a  fresh  avatar  of  Ishtar.  In  other 
sites  she  resembled  the  picture  that  Dante  made 
of  Fortune  and  which  an  artist  detached. 

"  Dante,"  said  Saint-Victor,  "  displays  Fortune 
turning  her  wheel,  distributing  good  and  evil, 
success  and  failure,  prosperity  and  want.  Mor- 
tals upbraid  and  accuse  her.  '  But  these  she  does 
not  hear.  Tranquil  among  primordial  things,  she 
turns  her  sphere  and  ineffably  rejoices.'  So  does 
Venus  indifferently  dispense  high  aims  and  vicious- 
ness.  Curses  do  not  reach  her,  insults  do  not 
touch  her,  the  passions  she  has  unchained  cannot 
3 


34  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

rise  to  where  she  is.     In  her  high  place  tranquilly 
she  turns  her  sphere  of  stars. 

'Volge  sua  sfera  e  beata  si  gode.'  ' 

It  was  not  that  serene  divinity,  it  was  the  more 
human  Aphrodite  of  Hesiod,  that  disturbed  the 
Argive  Helen.  The  story  of  her,  the  story  of  the 
golden  fruit  tossed  into  Olympus  with  its  tag,  To 
the  Fairest,  the  rivalries  that  resulted,  the  decision 
of  Paris,  corrupt  yet  just,  his  elopement  with  Helen, 
and  the  war  of  the  world  which  ensued,  these  epi- 
sodes the  hexameters  of  the  Iliad  unfold. 

There,  drenched  with  blood  and  bathed  in 
poetry,  is  Helen.  There,  too,  is  Paris  on  his  scar- 
let prow.  With  them  you  go  from  Lacedsemon, 
past  the  faint,  fair  rose  of  Ida's  snow,  over  the 
green  plain  of  waters,  right  to  the  gates  of  Ilium 
and  within,  and  see  how  each  man  stopped  and 
stood  and  mused  at  Helen's  face  and  her  un- 
dreamed-of beauty. 

Her  beauty  was  no  doubt  surprising.  She 
trailed  admiration  but  also  respect.  Homer  re- 
lates that  the  seated  sages  rose  at  her  approach. 
They  did  not  blame  her  for  the  conflagration  that 
her  face  had  caused.  They  knew,  as  Priam  knew, 
that  responsibility  rested  not  with  the  woman  but 
with  the  gods.  Perhaps  she  was  not  responsible. 
As  in  an  allegory  of  beauty  which  itself  is  for  all 
and  yet  for  none,  already  she  had  passed  from 


APHRODITE   URANIA  35 

hand  to  hand.  When  she  was  but  a  child  she  had 
been  abducted.  Theseus  took  her  from  a  temple 
in  which  she  was  dancing.  Recovered  by  her 
brothers,  Achilles  got  her  from  them  but  only  to 
cede  her  to  Patroclus.  Later  she  became  the 
wife  of  Menelaus.  Subsequently  Aphrodite  gave 
her  to  Paris.  At  that  she  rebelled.  But  no  mor- 
tal may  resist  the  divine.  Helen  accompanied 
Paris  to  Troy,  where,  during  the  war  that  was 
waged  for  her,  he  was  killed  and  she  remained  in 
his  brother's  arms  until  recovered  by  Menelaus. 

Quintus  Smyrnaeus1  represented  Menelaus, 
sword  in  hand,  rushing  violently  at  her.  A  glance 
of  her  eyes  disarmed  him.  In  the  clatter  of  the 
falling  sword  was  love's  reawakening.  Then 
presently,  as  an  honored  wife,  she  returned  to 
Lacedsemon.  Even  there  her  adventures  con- 
tinued. Achilles,  haunted  in  Hades  by  the  mem- 
ory of  her  beauty,  escaped,  and  in  mystic  nuptials 
conceived  with  her  a  winged  child,  Euphorion. 
Clearly,  as  the  sages  thought  and  Priam  believed, 
she  could  not  have  been  responsible.  Nor  was 
she  so  regarded.  The  various  episodes  of  her 
career  formed  a  sort  of  sacred  legend  for  the  pol- 
luting of  which  a  poet,  Stesichorus,  was  blinded. 
The  blindness  of  Homer,  Plato  attributed  to  the 
same  cause.  To  degrade  beauty  is  a  perilous 
thing.  To  preserve  it,  to  make  the  legend  more 
1  Paraleipomena,  XIII. 


36  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

sacred  still,  it  was  imagined  that  not  Helen,  but  a 
phantom  of  her,  accompanied  Paris  to  Troy,  and 
that  it  was  for  a  phantom  that  men  fought  and 
died. 

A  thousand  years  later  Apollonius  of  Tyana 
happened  on  that  romance.  Apollonius  knew  all 
languages,  including  that  of  silence,  and  all  things, 
save  the  caresses  of  women.  He  knew,  too,  how 
to  summon  the  dead.  To  verify  the  story,  he 
evoked  the  shade  that  once  before  for  Helen  had 
emerged  from  hell.  Apollonius  asked:  "Is  it 
true  that  Helen  went  to  Troy  ?  "  '  We  thought 
so,"  Achilles  answered,  "  and  we  fought  to  get  her 
back.  But  she  was  actually  in  Egypt.  When  we 
discovered  that  we  fought  for  Troy  itself."  1 

Achilles  may  have  been  right.  In  the  Odyssey, 
in  connection  with  Helen,  mention  is  made  of  ne- 
penthe. Nepenthe  was  an  Egyptian  drug  that 
dispelled  the  memory  of  whatever  is  sad.  Helen 
had  much  to  forget  and  probably  did,  even  with- 
out assistance.  She  was  the  personification  of 
passivity.  Her  little  rebellion  at  Aphrodite  was 
very  brief.  But,  assuming  the  nepenthe,  it  has 
been  assumed  also  that  in  it  was  the  secret  of  the 
spell  with  which  she  so  promptly  disarmed  Mene- 
laus.  To  modern  eyes  his  attitude  is  ambiguous. 
His  complaisance  has  an  air  of  complicity.  But 
Menelaus  lived  in  an  heroic  age.  Moreover, 
1  Philostratus:   Apollonius  Tyanensis,  IV.,  16. 


APHRODITE  URANIA  37 

when  Sarah  vacated  the  palace  of  the  Pharaohs, 
the  complaisance  of  Abraham  was  the  same. 

In  both  instances  the  principle  involved  was 
one  of  ownership.  In  patriarchal  and  heroic  days 
woman  was  an  asset.  She  was  the  living  money 
of  the  period.  Agamemnon,  in  devising  how  he 
might  calm  the  anger  of  Achilles,  offered  him  a 
quantity  of  girls.  They  were  so  much  current 
coin.  When  stolen,  recovery  was  the  owner's 
chief  aim.  What  may  have  happened  in  the  in- 
terim was  a  detail,  better  appreciable  when  it  is 
remembered  that  booty  was  treated,  as  Helen  at 
Ilium  was  treated,  in  the  light  of  Paris'  lawful 
wife ;  for  robbery  at  that  time  was  a  highly  legiti- 
mate mode  of  acquiring  property,  provided  and 
on  condition  that  the  robber  and  the  robbed  were 
foes.  The  idea  of  enticing  the  property  was  too 
complicated  for  the  simplicity  of  those  days.  It 
was  in  that  simplicity,  together  with  the  belief 
that  whatever  occurred  was  attributable  to  the 
gods,  that  the  morality  of  the  epoch  resided. 

In  the  story  of  Paris  and  Helen  the  morality  of 
Aphrodite  is  as  ambiguous  as  the  attitude  of  Mene- 
laus.  She  has  the  air  of  an  entremetteuse.  But  her 
purpose  was  not  to  favorize  frailty.  Her  purpose 
was  the  exercise  of  her  sovereign  pleasure.  Paris, 
in  adjudging  to  her  the  prize  of  beauty,  became 
the  object  of  her  special  regard,  his  people  became 
her  people,  their  enemies  her  own.    The  latter  pre- 


38  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

vailed,  but  that  was  because  Destiny — to  whose 
power  the  gods  themselves  had  to  yield — so  willed. 

In  the  Odyssey  the  morality  of  the  Iliad  is  en- 
hanced. The  enchantments  of  Calypso,  the  sor- 
ceries of  Circe,  the  seductions  of  sirens,  long  years 
themselves,  wanderings  over  perilous  seas,  dan- 
gers, hardships,  temptations,  failed  to  divert 
Odysseus  from  his  memories  of  Penelope,  who  in 
turn  resisted  every  suitor  for  his  sake.  When  the 
later  philosophy  of  Greece  inquired  what  was 
woman  at  her  best,  it  answered  its  own  question 
in  looking  back  at  her.  A  thousand  years  after 
she  had  been  sung,  Horace,  writing  to  Lollius, 
said :  "  I  have  been  re-reading  the  poet  of  the  Tro- 
jan War.  No  one  has  told  so  well  as  he  what  is 
noble  and  what  is  base."  St.  Basilius,  writing 
later  still,  declared  that  the  Homeric  epics  were  a 
perpetual  praise  of  right.  The  fact,  he  noted, 
was  particularly  obvious  in  the  passage  in  which 
Odysseus  confronted  Nausicaa. 

That  little  princess,  historically  the  first  who 
washed  household  linen  in  public,  was,  when  so 
engaged,  surprised  by  the  shipwrecked  hero.  In- 
stead of  being  alarmed  at  the  appearance  of  this 
man  whom  the  waters  had  disrobed,  she  was  con- 
scious only  of  a  deep  respect.  St.  Basilius  gives 
the  reason.  In  default  of  clothing  Homer  had 
dressed  him  in  virtue.1 

1  Ethica  S.  Basilii. 


APHRODITE   URANIA  39 

The  deduction  is  so  pleasant  that  the  views  of 
the  saint  concerning  Circe  and  Calypso  would  be 
of  interest.  But  they  are  unrecorded.  It  may 
be  that  he  had  none.  The  enchantresses  them- 
selves with  their  philters  and  enthralments  are 
supposedly  fabulous.  Yet  in  the  Homeric  ac- 
count of  their  seas,  once  thought  to  be  but  a  dream 
of  fairyland,  mariners  have  found  a  log  book  of 
Mediterranean  facts  so  accurate  that  a  pilot's 
guide  is  but  a  prose  rendering  of  its  indications.1 
As  with  the  seas  so  with  the  sirens.  Their  en- 
chantments were  real. 

At  an  epoch  when  women  generally  were  but 
things,  too  passively  indifferent  and  too  respect- 
fully obedient  to  care  to  attempt,  even  could 
they  have  divined  how,  to  captivate,  Circe  and 
Calypso  displayed  the  then  novel  lures  of  coque- 
try and  fascination.  In  the  charm  of  their 
voices,  in  the  grace  of  their  manners,  in  the  har- 
mony of  their  dress,  in  the  perfume  of  their  lips, 
in  their  use  of  unguents,  in  their  desire  to  please 
joined  to  the  high  art  of  it,  was  a  subtlety  of 
seduction  so  new  and  unimagined  that  it  was 
magical  indeed.  In  the  violent  Iliad,  women, 
hunted  like  game,  were  but  booty.  In  the  suaver 
Odyssey  was  their  revenge.  It  was  they  who 
captured  and  detained,  reducing  the  hardiest 
heroes  into  servants  of  their  pleasure.  It  is  rea- 
1  Berard:   Les  Pheniciens  et  l'Odyssee. 


40  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

sonable  that  their  islands  should  have  been 
thought  enchanted  and  they  enchantresses. 

The  story  of  their  spells,  of  their  refinements, 
and  of  their  consequent  dominations,  exerted 
gradually  an  influence  wide  and  profound.  Women 
began  to  conjecture  something  else  than  marriage 
by  right  of  might.  Into  the  conjecturings  came 
attempts  at  emancipation  that  preoccupied  hus- 
bands and  moralists.  Hesiod  denounced  the  new 
ambitions,  and,  finding  denunciation  perhaps  in- 
effective, employed  irony.  He  told  of  Pandora 
who,  fashioned  first  out  of  clay,  afterward  adorned 
with  a  parure  of  beauty,  was  then  given  perfidy, 
falsehood  and  ruse,  that,  in  being  a  delight  to 
man,  she  should  be  also  a  disaster. 

The  picture,  interesting  in  its  suggestion  of  Eve, 
was  originally  perhaps  a  Chaldsean  curio,  im- 
ported by  Phoenician  traders.  Its  first  Hellenic 
setting  was  due  probably  to  Orpheus,  the  great 
lost  poet  of  love,  whose  songs  charmed  all  nature, 
all  hell  as  well.  From  him,  through  problematic 
hands,  it  drifted  to  Hesiod,  as  already  his  lyre  had 
drifted  to  Lesbos.  The  picture  persisted,  the  lyre 
as  well.  To  the  latter  the  Mitylenes  attributed 
the  wonder  of  the  beauty  of  their  nightingales, 
chief  among  whom  was  Sappho. 


IV 

SAPPHO 

Sappho  was  contemporaneous  with  Nebuchad- 
nezzar. While  he  was  chastening  the  Jews,  she 
was  creating  love.  In  her  day  the  condition  of 
Hellenic  women  differed  from  what  it  had  been. 
Generally  they  were  shut  apart,  excluded  from 
any  exercise  of  their  possible  minds,  restricted  to 
Strict  domesticity.  At  Athens  a  girl  might  not 
so  much  as  look  from  a  window.  If  she  did,  she 
saw  nothing.  The  window  did  not  give  on  the 
street.  But  in  the  temples  the  candor  of  her  eyes 
was  violated.  In  the  festivals  of  Ceres  the 
modesty  of  her  ears  was  assailed.  Otherwise, 
she  was  securely  guarded.  If,  to  her  detriment, 
she  eluded  guardianship,  she  could  be  sold. 
With  marriage  she  entered  into  a  form  of  superior 
slavery.  When  her  husband's  friends  supped  with 
him,  she  was  not  permitted  to  be  present.  With- 
out permission  she  could  not  go  from  one  apart- 
ment to  the  next.  Without  permission  she  could 
not  go  out.  When  she  did,  it  was  at  her  husband's 
side,    heavily  veiled.     With   his   permission,  she 


42  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

might  go  to  the  theatre,  but  only  when  tragedy 
was  given.  At  comedies  and  at  the  games  she 
was  forbidden  to  assist.  In  case  of  disobedience 
the  penalty  was  death.  Pleasures  and  privi- 
leges were  limited  to  housekeeping  and  mother- 
hood. At  the  immanence  of  the  latter  her  sur- 
roundings were  embellished  with  beautiful  trifles, 
with  objects  of  art,  with  whatever  influences 
might  prenatally  affect,  and,  in  affecting,  perfect 
the  offspring.  Otherwise,  her  existence  was 
simple  and  severe.  The  peplos  tissue  of  gold 
was  not  for  her.  Garments  colored  or  flowered 
were  not,  either.  These  were  reserved  for  her 
inferiors  and  superiors,  for  the  hierodules  of 
Aphrodite  Pandemos  and  the  images  of  the  gods. 
Though  her  robes  were  simple,  they  had  to  be 
heavy.  If  light,  a  fine  was  incurred.  If  they 
did  not  hang  properly,  another  fine  was  imposed. 
If,  to  the  detriment  of  her  husband,  a  man  suc- 
ceeded in  approaching  her,  she  could  be  killed 
or  merely  repudiated;  in  the  latter  case,  she  could 
no  longer  enter  a  temple,  any  one  might  insult 
her.     Still  a  slave,  she  was  an  outcast  as  well. 

Such  were  the  laws.  Their  observance  is  a 
different  matter.  In  Aristophanes  and  the  comic 
poets  generally  Athenian  women  of  position 
were  dissolute  when  they  were  not  stupid,  and 
usually  they  were  both.  They  may  have  been. 
But     poets     exaggerate.     Besides,    divorce    was 


SAPPHO  43 

obtainable.  Divorce  was  granted  on  joint  re- 
quest. On  the  demand  of  the  husband  it  could 
be  had.  In  the  event  of  superscandalous  conduct 
on  his  part,  it  was  granted  to  the  wife,  provided 
she  appeared  before  a  magistrate  and  personally 
demanded  it.  The  wife  of  the  wicked  and 
winning  Alcibiades  went  on  such  an  errand. 
Alcibiades  met  her,  caught  her  in  his  arms  and, 
to  the  applause  of  the  wittiest  people  in  the 
world,  carried  her  triumphantly  home.  Aris- 
tophanes and  Alcibiades  came  in  a  later  and 
more  brilliant  epoch.  In  the  days  of  Sappho 
severity  was  the  rigorous  rule,  one  sanctioned 
by  the  sentiment  of  a  people  in  whose  virile 
sports  clothing  was  discarded,  and  in  whose 
plays  jest  was  too  violent  for  delicate  ears. 

In  Sparta  the  condition  of  women  was  similar, 
but  girls  had  the  antique  freedom  which  Nausicaa 
enjoyed.  Destined  by  the  belligerent  constitu- 
tion of  Laceda?mon  to  share,  even  in  battle,  the 
labors  of  their  brothers,  they  devoted  themselves, 
not  to  domesticity,  but  to  physical  development. 
They  wrestled  with  young  men,  raced  with  them, 
swam  the  Eurotas,  preparing  themselves  proudly 
and  purely  to  be  mothers  among  a  people  who 
destroyed  any  child  that  was  deformed,  fined  any 
man  that  presumed  to  be  stout,  forced  debilitated 
husbands  to  cede  their  wives  to  stronger  arms, 
and  who,  meanwhile,    protected  the    honor    of 


44  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

their  daughters  with  laws  of  which  an  infraction 
was  death. 

The  marriage  of  Spartan  girls  was  so  arranged 
that  during  the  first  years  of  it  they  saw  their 
husbands  infrequently,  furtively,  almost  clandes- 
tinely, in  a  sort  of  hide-and-go-seek  devised  by 
Lycurgus  in  order  that  love,  instead  of  declining 
into  indifference,  should,  while  insensibly  losing 
its  illusions,  preserve  and  prolong  its  strength. 
Otherwise,  the  Spartan  wife  became  subject  to 
the  common  Hellenic  custom.  Her  liberty  de- 
parted with  her  girlhood.  Save  her  husband, 
no  man  might  see  her,  none  could  praise  her, 
none  but  he  could  blame.  Her  sole  jewels  were 
her  children.  Her  richest  garments  were  stoic- 
ism and  pride.  "What  dower  did  you  bring 
your  husband  ? "  an  Athenian  woman  asked  of 
one  of  them.     "  Chastity,"  was  the  superb  reply.1 

Lesbos  differed  from  Lacedsemon.  The  Spar- 
tans declared  that  they  knew  how  to  fight,  not  how 
to  talk.  They  put  all  their  art  into  not  having 
any.  The  Lesbians  put  theirs  into  the  production 
of  verse.  At  Mitylene,  poetic  development  was 
preferred  to  physical  culture.  The  girls  there 
thought  more  of  immortality  than  of  motherhood. 
But  the  unusual  liberty  which  they  enjoyed  was 
due  to  influences  either  Boeotian  or  Egyptian, 
perhaps  to  both.  Egypt  was  neighborly.  With 
1  Xenophon :    de  Republica  Lacedsemoniorum. 


SAPPHO  45 

Lesbos,  Egypt  was  in  constant  communication. 
The  liberty  of  women  there,  as  generally  through- 
out the  morning  lands,  religion  had  procured. 
Where  Ishtar  passed,  she  fevered,  but  also  she 
freed.  Beneath  her  mantle  women  acquired  a 
liberty  that  was  very  real.  On  the  very  sites 
in  which  Islam  was  to  shut  them  up,  Semiramis, 
Strantonice,  Dido,  Cleopatra,  and  Zenobia  ap- 
peared. Isis,  who  was  Ishtar's  Egyptian  avatar, 
was  particularly  liberal.  Among  the  cities  es- 
pecially dedicated  to  her  was  Naucratis. 

Charaxus,  a  brother  of  Sappho,  went  there, 
met  Rhodopis,  a  local  beauty,  and  fell  in  love 
with  her.  Charaxus  was  a  merchant.  He 
brought  wine  to  Egypt,  sold  it,  returned  to  Greece 
for  more.  During  one  of  his  absences,  Rhodopis, 
while  lolling  on  a  terrace,  dropped  her  sandal 
which,  legend  says,  a  vulture  seized,  carried 
away,  and  let  fall  into  the  lap  of  King  Amasis. 
The  story  of  Cinderella  originated  there.  With 
this  difference:  though  the  king,  after  prodigal 
and  impatient  researches,  discovered  the  little 
foot  to  which  the  tiny  sandal  belonged,  Rhodopis, 
because  of  Charaxus,  disassociated  herself  from 
his  advances.  Subsequently  a  young  Naucratian 
offered  a  fortune  to  have  relations  with  her. 
Because  of  Charaxus,  Rhodopis  again  refused. 
The  young  man  dreamed  that  she  consented, 
dreamed   that    she  was  his,  and   boasted  of   the 


46  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

dream.  Indignantly  Rhodopis  cited  him  before 
the  magistrates,  contending  that  he  should  pay  her 
as  proposed.  The  matter  was  delicate.  But  the 
magistrates  decided  it  with  great  wisdom.  They 
authorized  Rhodopis  to  dream  that  she  was  paid. 

Rumors  of  these  and  of  similar  incidents  were 
probably  reported  in  Lesbos  and  may  have 
influenced  the  condition  of  women  there.  But 
memories  of  Bceotia  from  which  their  forefathers 
came  was  perhaps  also  a  factor.  Bceotia  was  a 
haunt  of  the  muses.  In  the  temple  to  them, 
which  Lesbos  became,  the  freedom  of  Erato  was 
almost  of  necessity  accorded  to  her  priestesses. 

Lesbos  was  then  a  stretch  of  green  gardens  and 
white  peristyles  set  beneath  a  purple  dome. 
To-day  there  is  no  blue  bluer  than  its  waters. 
There  is  nothing  so  violet  as  the  velvet  of  its 
sky.  With  such  accessories  the  presence  of 
Erato  was  perhaps  inevitable.  In  any  case  it 
was  profuse.  Nowhere,  at  no  time,  has  emotional 
sestheticism,  the  love  of  the  lovely,  the  fervor  of 
individual  utterance,  been  as  general  and  spon- 
taneous as  it  was  in  this  early  Academe. 

In  the  later  Academe  at  Athens  laughter  was 
prohibited.  That  of  Mitylene  was  less  severe. 
To  loiter  there  some  familiarity  with  the  mag- 
nificence of  Homer  may  have  been  exacted,  but 
otherwise  a  receptive  mind,  appreciative  eyes, 
and    kissable    lips    were    the    best    passports    to 


SAPPHO  47 

Sappho,  the  girl  Plato  of  its  groves,  who,  like 
Plato,  taught  beauty,  sang  it  as  well  and  with  it  the 
glukwpikros — the  bitterness  of  things   too   sweet. 

Others  sang  with  her.  Among  those,  whose 
names  at  least,  the  fates  and  the  Fathers  have 
spared  us,  were  Erinna  and  Andromeda.  Sap- 
pho cited  them  as  her  rivals.  One  may  wonder 
could  they  have  been  really  that.  Plato  called 
Sappho  the  tenth  muse.  Solon,  after  hearing 
one  of  her  poems,  prayed  that  he  might  not  die 
until  he  had  learned  it.  Longinus  spoke  of  her 
with  awe.  Strabo  said  that  at  no  period  had  any 
one  been  known  who  in  any  way,  however  slight, 
could  be  compared  to  her. 

Though  twenty-five  centuries  have  gone  since 
then,  Sappho  is  still  unexceeded.  Twice  only 
has  she  been  approached;  in  the  first  instance 
by  Horace,  in  the  second  by  Swinburne,  and 
though  it  be  admitted,  as  is  customary  among 
scholars,  that  Horace  is  the  most  correct  of  the 
Latin  poets,  as  Swinburne  is  the  most  faultless 
of  our  day,  Sappho  sits  and  sings  above  them 
atop,  like  her  own  perfect  simile  of  a  bride : 

Like  the  sweet  apple  which  reddens  atop  on  the  topmost 
bough, 

Atop  on  the  topmost  twig  which  the  pluckers  forgot  some- 
how. 

Forget  it  not,  nay,  but  got  it  not,  for  none  could  get  it  till 


low.1 


'Rossetti,  D.  G. 


48  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

It  is  regrettable  that  one  cannot  now  get 
Sappho.  But  of  at  least  nine  books  there  remain 
but  two  odes  and  a  handful  of  fragments.  The 
rest  has  been  lost  on  the  way,  turned  into  palimp- 
sests, or  burned  in  Byzance.  The  surviving 
fragments  are  limited  some  to  a  line,  some  to  a 
measure,  some  to  a  single  word.  They  are  the 
citations  of  lexicographers  and  grammarians, 
made  either  as  illustrations  of  the  iEolic  tongue 
or  as  examples  of  metre. 

The  odes  are  addressed,  the  one  to  Aphrodite, 
the  other  to  Anactoria.  The  first  is  derived 
from  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  who  quoted 
it  as  a  perfect  illustration  of  perfect  verse.  The 
second  was  given  by  Longinus  as  an  example 
of  the  sublime  in  poetry— of  the  display,  as  he 
put  it,  not  of  one  emotion,  but  of  a  congress  of 
them.  Under  the  collective  title  of  Anactoria, 
these  odes  together  with  many  of  the  fragments, 
Swinburne  has  interwoven  into  an  exquisite 
whole. 

To  appreciate  it,  Sappho  herself  should  be 
understood.  Her  features,  which  the  Lesbians 
put  on  their  coins,  are  those  of  a  handsome  boy. 
On  seeing  them  one  does  not  say,  Can  this  be 
Sappho  ?  But  rather,  This  is  Sappho  herself. 
They  fit  her,  fit  her  verse,  fit  her  fame.  That 
fame,  prodigious  in  her  own  day,  is  serviceable 
in   ours.     It  has   retained  the   name  of  Phaon, 


SAPPHO  49 

her  lover;  the  names  of  girls  for  whom  she 
also  cared.  Of  these,  Suidas  particularly  men- 
tioned Atthis  and  Gorgo.  Regarding  Anactoria 
there  is  the  testimony  of  the  ode.  There  is  more. 
"  I  loved  thee  once,  Atthis,  long  ago,"  she  ex- 
claimed in  one  fragment.  In  another  she  de- 
clared herself  "Of  Gorgo  full  weary."  But  the 
extreme  poles  of  her  affection  are  supposably 
represented  by  Phaon  and  Anactoria.  The  ode 
to  the  latter  is,  apart  from  its  perfection,  merely 
a  jealous  plaint,  yet  otherwise  useful  in  showing 
the  trend  of  her  fancy,  in  addition  to  the  fact  that 
her  love  was  not  always  returned.  Of  that, 
though,  there  is  further  evidence  in  the  fragments. 
Some  one  she  reproached  with  being  "  Fonder  of 
girls  than  Gello."  Elsewhere  she  said  "Scorn- 
fuller  than  thou  have  I  nowhere  found."  But 
even  in  the  absence  of  such  evidence,  the  episode 
connected  with  Phaon,  although  of  a  different 
order,  would  suffice. 

Contemporaneous  knowledge  of  it  is  derived 
from  Strabo,  Servius,  Palsephatus,  and  from  an 
alleged  letter  in  one  of  Ovid's  literary  forgeries. 
According  to  these  writers,  Phaon  was  a  good- 
looking  young  brute  engaged  in  the  not  inelegant 
occupation  of  ferryman.  In  what  manner  he 
first  approached  Sappho,  whether  indeed  Sappho 
did  not  first  approach  him,  is  uncertain.  Pliny, 
who  perhaps  wTas  credulous,  believed  that  Phaon 


50  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

had  happened  on  the  male  root  of  a  seaweed 
which  was  supposed  to  act  as  a  love  charm 
and  that  by  means  of  it  he  succeeded  in  winning 
Sappho's  rather  volatile  heart.  However  that  may 
be,  presently  Phaon  wearied.  It  was  probably 
in  these  circumstances  that  the  Ode  to  Aphrodite 
was  written,  which,  in  Swinburne's  paraphase — 
slightly  paraphrased  anew — is  as  follows: 

I  beheld  in  sleep  the  light  that  is 

In  her  high  place  in  Paphos,  heard  the  kiss 

Of  body  and  soul  that  mix  with  eager  tears 

And  laughter  stinging  through  the  eyes  and  ears ; 

Saw  Love,  as  burning  flame  from  crown  to  feet, 

Imperishable  upon  her  storied  seat; 

Clear  eyelids  lifted  toward  the  north  and  south, 

A  mind  of  many  colors  and  a  mouth 

Of  many  tunes  and  kisses;   and  she  bowed 

With  all  her  subtle  face  laughing  aloud, 

Bowed  down  upon  me  saying,  "Who  doth  the  wrong, 

Sappho  ?"     But  thou — thy  body  is  the  song, 

Thy  mouth  the  music;  thou  art  more  than  I, 

Though  my  voice  die  not  till  the  whole  world  die, 

Though  men  that  hear  it  madden;   though  love  weep, 

Though  nature  change,  though  shame  be  charmed  to  sleep. 

Ah,  wilt  thou  slay  me  lest  I  kiss  thee  dead  ? 

Yet  the  queen  laughed  and  from  her  sweet  heart  said: 

"Even  he  that  flees  shall  follow  for  thy  sake, 

And  he  shall  give  thee  gifts  that  would  not  take, 

Shall  kiss  that  would  not  kiss  thee"  (Yea,  kiss  me) 

"When  thou  wouldst  not" — When  I  would  not  kiss  thee! 

If  Phaon  heard  he  did  not  heed.  He  took 
ship  and  sailed  away,  to  Sicily  it  is  said,  where, 
it  is  also  said,  Sappho  followed,  desisting  only 


SAPPHO  51 

when  he  flung  at  her  some  gibe  about  Anactoria 
and  Atthis.  In  a  letter  which  Ovid  pretended 
she  then  addressed  to  him,  she  referred  to  the 
gibe,  but  whether  by  way  of  denial  or  admission, 
is  now,  owing  to  different  readings  of  the  text, 
uncertain.  In  some  copies  she  said,  quas  (the 
Lesbian  girls)  non  sine  crimine  (reproach)  amavi. 
In  others,  quas  hie  (in  Lesbos)  sine  crimine 
amavi.  Disregarding  the  fact  that  the  letter 
itself  is  imaginary,  the  second  reading  is  to  be 
preferred,  not  because  it  is  true,  but  precisely 
because  it  is  not.  Sappho,  though  a  woman,  was 
a  poet.  Several  of  her  verses  contain  allusions 
to  attributes  poetically  praised  by  poets  who  never 
possessed  them,  and  Ovid  who  had  not  written  a 
treatise  on  the  Art  of  Love  for  the  purpose  of 
displaying  his  ignorance,  was  too  adroit  to  let 
his  imaginary  Sappho  admit  what  the  real 
Sappho  would  have  denied.1 

Meanwhile  Phaon  refused  to  return.  At  Les- 
bos there  was  a  white  rock  that  stretched  out  to 
the  sea.  On  it  was  a  temple  to  Apollo.  A  fall 
from  the  rock  was,  at  the  time,  locally  regarded 
as  a  cure  for  love.  Arthemesia,  queen  of  Caria, 
whom  another  Phaon  had  rebuffed  and  who,  to 
teach  him  better  manners,  put  his  eyes  out, 
threw  herself  from  it.  Sappho  did  also.  It  cured 
her  of  the  malady,  of  all  others  as  well. 
1  Epistolae  Heroi'dum,  XV. 


52  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

Such  is  the  story,  such,  rather,  is  its  outline,  one 
interesting  from  the  fact  that  it  constitutes  the 
initial  love-tragedy  of  the  Occident,  as,  also, 
because  of  a  climax  befitting  the  singer  of  the 
bitterness  of  things  too  sweet. 


V 
THE  AGE  OF  ASPASIA 

"  Eros  is  son  of  earth  and  heaven,  but  Persua- 
sion is  Aphrodite's  daughter."  So  Sappho  sang. 
The  note,  new  and  true  as  well,  became,  as  fresh 
truth  ever  does  become,  revolutionary.  Athens 
heard  it.  Even  Sparta  listened.  Corinth  and 
Miletus  repeated  it  in  clinging  keys. 

With  the  new  truth  came  a  new  era.  Through 
meditations  patient  and  prolonged  Calypso  had 
succeeded  in  adding  coquetry  to  love.  With  a 
distich  Sappho  emancipated  it.  To  the  despotism 
that  insisted  she  suggested  the  duty  of  asking; 
to  the  submission  that  had  obeyed  she  indicated 
the  grace  that  grants ;  yet,  posing  as  barrier  between 
each,  the  right  and  liberty  of  choice,  which  already 
Rhodopis  had  exacted. 

Then  the  new  era  came.  The  gynseceum 
was  not  emptied.  Wives  were  still  shut  apart. 
But  elsewhere,  with  that  marvel  which  Atticism 
was,  came  the  sense  of  personal  dignity,  the  con- 
ception of  individuality,  the  theory  of  freedom, 
and,  ultimately,  in  streets  where  women  of  posi- 
tion could  not  venture  unaccompanied  and  un- 


54  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

veiled,  they  were  free  to  come  and  go  at  will,  to 
mingle  with  men,  to  assist  at  comedies  and  games, 
to  become  what  women  are  to-day,  with  this 
difference,  they  were  more  handsome  and  less 
pretty.  To  a  people  naturally  aesthetic  the 
revolution  naturally  appealed.  Led  by  the  irre- 
sistible authority  of  beauty,  for  support  it  had  the 
sovereign  prestige  of  the  muse. 

In  stooping  to  conquer,  Erato  smiled,  supplying, 
as  she  did  so,  another  conception,  one  as  novel  as 
the  first,  the  idea  that,  after  all,  though  love 
is  a  serious  thing,  the  mingling  of  a  little  gayety 
in  it  is  not  forbidden.  It  was  to  Anacreon  that 
Erato  offered  that  chord,  threw  it  rather,  laughing, 
in  his  face.  The  poet,  laughing  too,  took  and 
plucked  it  lightly,  producing  quick  airs,  conceits 
of  pleasure  and  of  wine.  When  Sappho  sang, 
it  was  with  all  her  fervent  soul.  When  she  loved 
it  was  with  all  her  fervid  heart.  She  sang  as 
the  nightingales  of  Lesbos  sang,  because  singing 
was  her  life,  and  she  sang  of  love  because  she 
could  sing  of  nothing  else.  Anacreon  did  not 
pretend  to  sing.  He  hummed  as  the  bees  of 
Hymettus  hummed,  over  this  flower  and  over 
that,  indifferent  to  each,  caring  not  for  them, 
for  their  sweets  merely,  eager  to  get  all  he  could 
as  quickly  as  he  might,  smacking  his  faunesque 
lips  over  the  grape,  staggering  with  a  hiccough 
along   the    lanes   of   love,    trailing   among   them 


THE  AGE   OF  AS  PAS  I A  55 

strophes  to  Bacchus  rather  than  to  Eros,  yet 
managing  to  combine  the  two  and  leaving  finally 
to  the  world  that  chord  with  its  notes  of  pleasure. 

These,  mounting  behind  Sappho's  songs,  spread 
through  Hellas,  creating  as  they  spread  a  caste 
that  borrowed  from  the  girl  her  freedom,  from 
the  bard  his  wit,  and,  from  the  fusion,  produced 
the  hetaira. 

Hetaira  is  a  term  which  Sappho  applied  to  her 
pupils.  It  means  comrade.  But  either  because 
it  was  too  elusive  for  history's  detention  or  too 
fragile  for  its  care,  it  became  corrupted,  shoved 
roughly  by  stupid  hands  among  the  pornai.  The 
latter  were  the  hierodules  of  Aphrodite  Pandemos. 
The  hetaira?  were  objects  of  art,  patiently 
fashioned  in  fastidious  convents,  a  class  of 
highly  educated  young  women  to  whom  marriage 
did  not  necessarily  appeal  but  to  whom  liberty 
was  essential,  girls  "  pleasanter,"  Amphis  said, 
"  than  the  wife,  for  she  with  the  law  on  her  side, 
can  sit  in  your  house  and  despise  you." 

Such  an  attitude  is  not  enticing.  The  hetairse 
were  an  alterative  from  it,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
a  protest  against  existing  feminine  conditions. 
These  conditions  the  legislature  could  not  change 
but  the  protest  the  legislature  could  and  did 
encourage.  While  the  wife  sat  contemptuous 
in  the  severe  gynaeceum,  the  hetairae  mingled  with 
men,    charming    them    always,    marrying    them 


56  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

occasionally,  yet  only  when  their  own  equality 
and  independence  was  recognized  and  conserved. 

It  was  into  a  union  of  this  kind  that  Pericles 
entered  with  Aspasia.  He  never  regretted  it, 
though  history  has  affected  to  regard  it  as  illicit, 
and  Aspasia  as  Omphale.  The  affectation  is 
an  injustice.  "In  all  things,"  Pericles  said,  "a 
man's  life  should  be  as  clean  as  his  hands." 
"What  Aspasia  said  is  not  recorded.  But  it  is 
not  improbable  that  she  inspired  the  remark. 

Aspasia  was  born  and  educated  at  Miletus. 
It  was  chiefly  there  and  at  Corinth  that  the  he- 
tairse  were  trained.  In  these  cities,  seminaries 
had  been  established  where  girls  rose  from  studies 
as  serious  as  those  which  the  practice  of  other 
liberal  professions  comport.  Their  instruction 
comprised  everything  that  concerned  the  per- 
fectioning  of  the  body  and  everthing  that  related 
to  the  embellishment  of  the  mind.  In  addition 
to  calisthenics,  there  were  courses  in  music, 
poetry,  diction,  philosophy,  politics,  and  art. 
The  graduates  were  admirable.  Their  beauty 
was  admirable  also.  But  they  were  admired 
less  for  that  than  because  the  study  of  every 
grace  had  contributed  to  their  understanding 
of  the  unique  art,  which  is  that  of  charming. 
Charm  they  exhaled.  Gifted  and  accomplished, 
they  were  the  only  women  with  whom  an  en- 
lightened   Greek    could    converse.     Their    atti- 


THE   AGE   OF  ASPASIA  57 

tudewas  irreproachable,  their  distinction  extreme, 
and  they  differed  from  other  women  only  in  that 
their  manners  were  more  correct.  Plato  had 
one  of  them  for  muse.  Sophocles  another.  To 
Glycera,  of  whom  Menander  wrote,  poetry  was 
an  insufficient  homage,  a  statue  was  erected  to 
her.1 

These  instances,  anomalous  now,  were  logical 
then.  To  the  Greek  the  gifts  of  the  gods  were 
more  beneficent  here  than  hereafter.  Of  divine 
gifts  none  was  more  appreciated  and  none  more 
allied  to  the  givers  than  beauty.  The  value 
attached  to  it,  prodigious  in  peace,  was  potent 
in  war,  potent  in  law.  At  Platsea,  Callicrates 
was  numbered  among  the  heroes  because  of  his 
looks.  For  the  same  reason  Philippus,  killed 
in  battle,  was  nobly  buried  and  worshipped  by 
those  who  had  been  his  foes.  For  the  same  rea- 
son Phryne,  charged  with  high  crimes,  was 
acquitted. 

At  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  beneath  the  portico 
of  the  temple,  before  assembled  Athens,  Phryne 
appeared  in  the  guise  of  Aphrodite  rising  from 
the  sea.  Charged  with  parodying  the  rites,  she 
was  summoned  before  the  Areiopagus.  Con- 
viction meant  death.  But  her  beauty,  which 
her    advocate    suddenly  and    cleverly    disclosed, 

1  Athenaeus,  XIII,  Musonius:  de  Luxu.  Becker: 
Charikles. 


58  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

was  her  sole  defence.  It  sufficed  for  the  acquittal 
of  this  woman  whose  statue,  the  work  of  Praxi- 
teles, was  placed  in  the  temple  at  Delphi. 

The  tomb  of  a  sister  had  for  epitaph:  "  Greece, 
formerly  invincible,  was  conquered  and  enslaved 
by  the  beauty  of  Lais,  daughter  of  Love,  graduate 
of  Corinth,  who  here  rests  in  the  noble  fields  of 
Thessaly."  For  Thais  a  monument  was  erected. 
At  Tarsus  Glycera  had  honors  semi-divine.  In 
Greece,  let  a  woman  be  what  she  might,  if  beauti- 
ful she  was  deified,  if  charming  she  was  adored. 
In  either  case  she  represented  vivified  sesthetic- 
ism  to  a  people  at  once  intellectual  and  athletic, 
temperate  and  rich,  a  people  who,  contemptous 
of  any  time-consuming  business,  supported  by  a 
nation  of  slaves,  possessing  in  consequence  that 
wide  leisure  without  which  the  richest  are  poor, 
attained  in  their  brilliant  city  almost  the  ideal. 
They  knew  nothing  of  telegraphs  and  telephones, 
but  they  knew  as  little  of  hypocrisy  and  cant. 
Art  and  aesthetics  sufficed. 

In  Corinthian  and  Milesian  convents  aesthetics 
were  taught  to  girls  who,  lifting  their  fair  hands 
to  Aphrodite,  prayed  that  they  might  do  nothing 
that  should  not  charm,  say  nothing  that  should 
not  please.  These  studies  and  rituals  were 
supplemented  in  the  Academe.  There  they 
learned  that  the  rightful  path  in  love  consisted 
in  passing  from  beautiful  manners  to  beautiful 


THE   AGE   OF  ASPASIA  59 

thoughts,  from  beautiful  thoughts  to  beautiful 
aspirations,  from  beautiful  aspirations  to  beauti- 
ful meditations,  and  that,  in  so  passing,  they 
attained  wisdom  absolute  which  is  beauty  supreme. 

It  would  be  excessive  to  fancy  that  all  g-radu- 
ates  followed  these  precepts  and  entered  with 
them  into  the  austere  regions  where  Beauty, 
one  and  indivisible,  resides.  It  would  be  not  only 
excessive  but  unreasonable.  Manners  were  pro- 
per for  all,  but  for  some  revenues  were  better. 
Those  of  Phryne  were  so  ample  that  she  offered 
to  rebuild  the  walls  of  Thebes.  Those  of  Lais 
were  such  that  she  erected  temples.  But  Phryne 
and  Lais  came  later,  in  post-Aspasian  days, 
when  Corinth,  in  addition  to  schools,  had  marts 
in  which  beauty  was  an  article  of  commerce  and 
where  pleasure  received  the  same  official  en- 
couragement that  stoicism  had  at  Sparta.  In 
the  train  of  Lais,  Ishtar  followed.  It  was  Alex- 
ander that  invoked  her. 

In  the  age  of  Pericles  and  Aspasia,  Athens  was 
too  aesthetic  to  heed  the  one,  too  young  to  know 
the  other.  Pallas  alone,  she  who  from  her 
crystal  parapets  saw  and  foresaw  what  the  years 
would  bring,  could  have  told.  Otherwise  there 
was  then  not  a  shadow  on  Athens,  light  only, 
light  that  has  never  been  excelled,  light  which 
from  high  porches,  from  tinted  peristyles,  from 
gleaming    temples,    from    shining    statues,    from 


60  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

white  immortals,  from  hill  to  sea,  from  Olympus 
itself,  radiated,  revealing  in  its  intense  vibrations 
the  glare  of  genius  at  its  apogee. 

Whatever  is  beautiful  had  its  apotheosis  then. 
Whatever  was  superb  found  there  its  home. 
Athens  had  risen  to  her  full  height.  Salamis  had 
been  fought.  A  handful  of  athletes  had  routed 
Asia.  Reverse  the  picture  and  the  glare  could 
not  have  been.  Its  aurora  would  have  swooned 
back  into  darkness.  But  such  was  the  luminous- 
ness  it  acquired  that  one  ray,  piercing  the  mediaeval 
night,  created  the  Renaissance,  art's  rebirth,  the 
recall  of  antique  beauty. 

Salamis  lifted  Greece  to  the  skies.  In  the 
return  was  a  new  epoch,  the  most  brilliant  the 
world  has  known,  a  brief  century  packed  with 
the  art  of  ages,  filled  to  the  tips  with  grace,  lit 
with  a  light  that  still  dazzles.  It  was  too  fair. 
Willed  by  destiny,  it  menaced  the  supremacy 
of  the  divine.  "  But  by  whom,"  Io  asked,  "  is 
Destiny  ruled?"  "By  the  Furies,"  was  the 
prompt  reply. 

They  were  there.  From  the  depths  of  the 
archaic  skies  they  were  peering,  prepared  to 
pounce.  After  one  war,  another.  After  the 
rout  of  incoherent  Persia,  a  duel  between 
Athens  and  Sparta,  a  duel  of  jealousy,  feminine 
in  rancor,  virile  in  strength,  from  which  Sparta 
backed,  yet  only  to  return  and  fight  again,  only 


THE   AGE   OF  ASPASIA  61 

to  fall  at  last  as  Athens  did,  as  Thebes  did  too, 
beneath  the  might  of  Maeedon,  expiring  all  of 
them  in  those  convulsions  that  summoned  Rome. 

Meanwhile  there  was  but  light.  Death  had 
not  come.  In  between  was  the  unexampled 
reign  of  beauty  during  which,  after  iEschylus 
and  Pindar,  came  the  splendors  of  Sophocles, 
the  magnificence  of  Euripides,  Socratic  wisdom, 
and  the  rich,  rare  laugh  of  Aristophanes.  That 
being  insufficient,  there  was  Phcidias,  there  was 
Plato,  art  at  its  highest,  beauty  at  its  best,  and, 
that  the  opulent  chain  they  formed  might  not 
sever  too  suddenly,  there  followed  Praxiteles, 
Apelles,  Aristotle,  Epicurus,  and  Demosthenes. 
Even  with  them  that  chain  could  not  end.  Inter- 
twisting with  the  coil  of  death,  it  Hellenized 
Asia,  Atticized  Alexandria,  girdled  Rome,  resting 
in  the  latter's  Lower  Empire  until  recovered  by 
the  delighted  Renaissance. 

The  names  of  the  Periclean  age  are  high. 
There  is  a  higher  one  yet,  that  of  Pericles.  States- 
man, orator,  philosopher,  soldier,  artist,  poet, 
and  lover,  Pericles  was  so  great  that,  another 
Zeus,  he  was  called  the  Olympian.  If  to  him 
Egeria  came,  would  it  not,  a  poet  somewhere 
asked,  be  uncivil  to  depict  her  as  less  than  he  ? 
It  would  be  not  only  uncivil  but  untrue. 

Said  Themistocles,  "  You  see  that  boy  of  mine  ? 
Though  but  five,  he  governs  the  universe.     Yes, 


62  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

for  he  rules  his  mother,  his  mother  rules  me,  I 
rule  Athens  and  Athens  the  world."  After 
Themistocles  it  was  Pericles'  turn  to  govern  and 
be  ruled.     His  sovereign  was  Aspasia. 

Aspasia  had  come  from  Miletus  with  another 
hetaira  to  Athens  which  her  companion  vacated 
to  be  bride  of  a  Thessalian  king,  but  where  she 
became  the  wife  of  one  beside  whom  mere  kings 
were  nothing.  It  was  her  beauty  that  first 
attracted  Pericles.  Beauty  does  attract,  but  only 
graciousness  can  detain.  In  the  home  of  Pericles 
there  was  none,  a  woman  merely  of  the  Xantippe 
type  from  whom  he  separated  by  common  con- 
sent and  put  Aspasia,  not  in  her  inferior  place, 
but  on  a  pedestal  before  which  he  knelt.  As- 
pasia became  not  merely  his  wife  but  his  inspi- 
ration, his  comrade,  his  aid.  She  worked  for 
him  and  with  him.  She  encouraged  him  in  his 
work,  accompanied  him  in  his  battles,  consoled 
him  in  his  fatigues,  entertained  his  friends, 
talked  philosophy  with  Socrates,  frivolity  with 
Alcibiades,  art  with  Pheidias,  but  love  to  him, 
displaying  what  Athens  had  socially  never  seen, 
the  spectacle  of  delicacy,  culture,  wit,  beauty, 
and  ease  united  in  a  woman,  and  that  woman  a 
woman  of  the  world. 

The  sight,  highly  novel,  established  a  precedent 
and  with  it  fresh  conceptions  of  what  woman 
might     be.      In     the     Iliad,    she     was     money. 


THE  AGE   OF  ASPASIA  63 

Money  has  a  language  of  its  own.  In  the  en- 
chanted islands  of  the  Odyssey  she  was  charm. 
Charm  has  a  more  distinct  appeal.  In  Lesbos 
she  was  emancipated  and  that  made  her  headier 
still.  But  in  the  opulent  Athenian  nights  Aspasia 
revealed  her  not  physically  attractive  merely, 
not  personally  alluring  only,  not  simply  free,  but 
spirituelle,  addressing  the  mind  as  well  as  the 
eye,  inspiring  the  one,  refining  the  other,  capti- 
vating the  soul  as  well  as  the  senses,  the  ideal 
woman,  comrade,  helpmate,  and  sweetheart  in 
one. 

Like  the  day  it  was  too  fair.  Presently  the 
duel  occurred.  Lacedaemon,  trailing  the  pest 
in  her  tunic,  ravaged  the  Eleusinian  glades.  Peri- 
cles died.  Aspasia  disappeared.  The  duel, 
waning  a  moment,  was  resumed.  It  debilitated 
Sparta,  exhausted  Athens,  and  awoke  Thebes, 
who  fell  on  both  but  only  to  be  eaten  by  Philip. 

It  would  have  been  interesting  to  have  seen 
that  man  and  his  Epeirote  queen  who  hung 
serpents  about  her,  played  with  them  among 
poisonous  weeds  and  who,  because  of  another 
woman,  killed  her  king,  burned  her  rival  alive, 
and  gave  to  the  world  Alexander. 

It  would  have  been  more  interesting  still  to 
have  seen  the  latter  when,  undermined  by  every 
vice  of  the  vicious  East,  with  nothing  left  to 
conquer,  with  no  sin  left  to  commit,  with  no  crime 


64  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

left  undone,  he  descended  into  the  great  sewer 
that  Babylon  was  and  there,  in  a  golden  house, 
on  a  golden  throne,  in  the  attributes  of  divinity 
was  worshipped  as  a  god.  Behind  him  was  a 
background  of  mitred  priests  and  painted  chil- 
dren, about  him  were  the  fabulous  beasts  that 
roamed  into  heraldry,  with  them  was  a  harem  of 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  odalisques  appor- 
tioned to  the  days  of  the  year,  while  above  swung 
the  twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac.  In  that  picture 
Rome  was  to  find  the  prototype  of  her  Caesars, 
as  in  it  already  Hellas  has  seen  the  supplanting 
of  Aphrodite  by  Ishtar. 

Greece,  still  young,  lingered  briefly,  then 
without  decrepitude,  without  decadence,  ceased, 
nationally,  to  be.  Aphrodite,  young  too,  died 
with  her.  As  Venus  Pandemos  Rome  evoked 
her.  The  evocation  was  successful.  Venus 
Pandemos  appeared.  But  even  from  Olympus, 
which  together  with  Hellenic  civilization,  Rome 
absorbed,  Aphrodite  had  already  departed. 
Those  who  truly  sought  her  found  her  indeed, 
but  like  the  art  she  inspired  only  in  marble 
and  story. 


VI 
THE  BANQUET 

It  used  to  be  a  proverb  that  Apollo  created 
vEsculapius  to  heal  the  body  and  Plato  to  heal  the 
soul.  Plato  may  have  failed  to  do  that.  But  he 
heightened  its  stature.  It  has  been  loftier  since 
he  taught.  In  his  teaching  was  the  consumma- 
tion of  intellect.  His  mind  was  sky-like,  his 
speech  perfection.  Antiquity  that  thought  Zeus 
must  have  revealed  himself  to  Pheidias, 
thought,  too,  that  should  the  high  god  deign  to 
speak  to  mortals,  it  would  be  in  the  nightingale 
tongue  of  refinement  which  Plato  employed.  The 
beauty  of  it  is  not  always  apprehensible.  His 
views,  also,  are  not  always  understood.  Yet  an 
attempt  must  be  made  to  supply  some  semblance 
of  the  latter  because  of  the  influence  they  have 
had. 

"I  know  but  one  little  thing,"  said  Socrates. 
"It  is  love."  Socrates  was  ironical.  That  which 
it  pleased  him  to  call  little,  Plato  regarded  as  a 
special  form  of  the  universal  law  of  attraction. 
His  theories  on  the  subject  are  contained  in  the 
Phcedrus  and  the  Symposion,  two  poetically  lux- 


66  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

urious  works  produced  by  him  in  the  violet- 
crowned  city  during  the  brilliant  Athenian  day, 
before  Socrates  had  gone  and  Sparta  had  come. 

The  Symposion  is  a  banquet.  A  few  friends, 
Phaedrus  and  Pausanias,  men  of  letters;  Eryxi- 
machus,  a  physician;  Aristophanes,  the  poet; 
Socrates,  the  seer,  have  been  supping  at  the  house 
of  Agathon.  By  way  of  food  for  thought  love  is 
suggested.  Discussion  regarding  it  follows,  in 
which  Socrates  joins — a  simple  expedient  that 
enabled  Plato  to  put  in  his  master's  mouth  the 
aesthetic  nectar  of  personal  views  of  which  the  real 
Socrates  never  dreamed. 

Among  the  first  disputants  is  Phsedrus.  In  his 
quality  of  man  of  letters  he  began  with  extravagant 
praise  of  Eros,  whom  he  called  the  mightiest  of  all 
gods,  the  chief  minister  of  happiness. 

To  this,  Pausanias,  also  a  literary  man  and  there- 
fore indisposed  to  agree  with  another,  objected. 
"  Phsedrus  would  be  right,"  he  said,  "  if  there 
were  but  one  Eros.  But  there  are  two.  Love  is 
inseparable  from  Aphrodite.  If  there  were  only 
one  Aphrodite  there  would  be  only  one  love.  But 
there  are  two  Aphrodites.  Hence  there  must  be 
two  loves.  One  Aphrodite  is  Urania  or  celestial, 
the  other  Pandemos  or  common.  The  divinities 
should  all  be  lauded.  Still  there  is  a  distinction 
between  these  two.  They  vary  as  actions  do. 
Consider  what  we  are  now  doing,  drinking  and 


THE   BANQUET  67 

talking.  These  things  in  themselves  are  neither 
good  nor  evil.  They  become  one  or  the  other  in 
accordance  with  the  way  in  which  we  do  them. 
In  the  same  manner,  not  every  love,  but  only  that 
which  is  inherently  altruistic,  can  be  called  divine. 
The  love  inspired  by  Aphrodite  Pandemos  is 
essentially  common.  It  is  such  as  appeals  to  vul- 
gar natures.  It  is  of  the  senses,  not  of  the  soul. 
Intemperate  persons  experience  this  love,  which 
seeks  only  its  own  gross  end.  Whereas  the  love 
that  comes  of  Aphrodite  Urania  has  for  object 
the  happiness  and  improvement  of  another." 

With  all  of  which  Eryximachus  agreed.  Er- 
yximachus  was  a  physician,  consequently  more 
naturalistic,  and  in  agreeing  he  extended  the  dual- 
ity of  love  over  all  things,  over  plants  and  animals 
as  well  as  over  man,  claiming  for  it  a  universal 
influence  in  nature,  science,  and  the  arts,  express- 
ing himself  meanwhile  substantially  as  follows: 

In  the  human  body  there  are  two  loves,  con- 
fessedly different,  as  such  their  desires  are  unlike, 
the  desire  of  the  healthy  body  being  one  thing, 
that  of  the  unhealthy  something  else.  The  skil- 
ful physician  knows  how  to  separate  them,  how 
to  convert  one  into  the  other,  and  reconcile  their 
hostile  elements.  In  music  there  is  the  same 
reconciliation  of  opposites.  This  is  demonstra- 
ble by  rhythm,  which  is  composed  of  elements 
short    and    long,    and   which,   though    differing, 


68  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

may  be  harmonized.  The  course  of  the  seasons 
is  also  an  example  of  both  principles.  When  the 
opposing  forces,  sunlight  and  rain,  heat  and  cold, 
blend  harmoniously  they  bring  fertility  and 
health,  precisely  as  their  discord  has  a  counter 
influence.  The  knowledge  of  love  in  relation  to 
the  revolutions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  is  termed 
astronomy.  Lastly,  religion,  through  the  knowl- 
edge which  it  has  of  what  is  pious  and  what  is 
impious,  is  love's  intermediary  between  men  and 
gods. 

Such  is  love's  universal  sway.  The  origin  of 
its  duality  Aristophanes  then  explained.  Sages, 
neighbors  of  the  gods,  of  whom  Empedocles  was 
the  last  representative,  had  supposed,  that  in  the 
beginning  of  things,  those  that  loved  were  one. 
Later  they  were  separated.  Thereafter  they 
sought  the  better  half  which  they  had  lost.  This 
tradition,  possibly  Orphic,  Aristophanes  took  for 
text  and  embroidered  it  with  his  usual  grotesque- 
ness.  But  beneath  the  humor  of  his  illustrations 
there  was  an  idea  less  profound  perhaps  than  del- 
icate. Love,  however  regarded,  may  not  im- 
properly be  defined  as  the  union  of  two  beings 
who  complete  each  other  and  who,  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  Orphic  tradition,  reciprocally  dis- 
cover in  each  other  what  individually  they  once 
had  and  since  have  lacked.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  may  be  that  in  the  symbolism  which  Aristoph- 


THE   BANQUET  69 

anes  employed  was  an  attempt  to  apply  to  hu- 
manity the  theory  which  Eryximachus  had  set 
forth.  At  the  origin  of  all  things  is  unity,  which 
divides  and  becomes  multiple  only  to  return  to 
its  primal  shape.  Human  nature,  as  masculinely 
and  femininely  exemplified,  is  primitive  unity 
after  division  has  come,  and  love  is  the  return  to 
that  unity  which  in  itself  is  of  all  things  the  com- 
pelling law.  In  other  words,  one  is  many,  and, 
love  aiding,  many  are  one. 

But  whatever  Aristophanes  may  have  meant, 
his  views  were  subsidiary.  It  was  to  Socrates 
that  Plato  reserved  the  privilege  of  penetrating 
into  the  essence  of  love  and  of  displaying  its  prog- 
ressus  and  consummation.  "How  many  things 
that  I  never  thought  of,"  Socrates  on  reading  his 
own  discourse,  exclaimed,  "this  young  man  has 
made  me  say." 

Among  them  was  an  exposition  of  the  funda- 
mental law  of  human  nature,  the  universal  desire 
for  happiness.  In  the  demonstrations  that  fol- 
lowed good  was  shown  to  be  a  means  to  happi- 
ness; consequently,  every  one,  loving  happiness, 
loves  good  also.  In  this  sense  love  belongs  to  all. 
Every  one,  in  loving  happiness,  loves  good  and 
craves  a  perpetual  possession  of  both.  But  dif- 
ferent minds  have  different  ways  of  attaining  the 
same  end.  One  man  aspires  to  happiness  through 
wealth,  another  through  place,  a  third  through 


70  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

philosophy.  These  are  uninfluenced  by  Eros. 
The  influence  of  Eros  is  exerted  when  the  per- 
petual possession  of  happiness  is  sought  in  im- 
mortality. 

But  life  itself  comports  no  continuity.  Life  is 
but  a  succession  of  phenomena,  of  which  one  de- 
parts as  another  appears,  and  of  which  each, 
created  by  what  has  gone  before,  creates  that 
which  ensues,  the  result  being  that,  though  from 
womb  to  tomb  a  man  be  called  the  same,  never, 
either  mentally  or  physically,  is  he.  The  constant 
disintegration  and  renovation  of  tissues  corre- 
spond with  the  constant  flux  and  reflux  of  sen- 
sations, emotions,  thoughts.  The  man  of  this 
instant  perishes.  He  is  replaced  by  a  new  one  dur- 
ing the  next.  That  proposition  true  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  equally  true  of  the  species,  continuance 
of  either  being  secured  only  through  reproduc- 
tion. The  love  of  immortality  manifests  itself 
therefore  through  the  reproductive  impulse. 
Beauty,  in  another,  exercises  an  attractive  force 
that  enables  a  gratification  of  the  impulse  which 
ugliness  arrests.  Hence  comes  the  love  of  beauty. 
In  some,  it  stimulates  the  body,  attracting  them 
to  women  and  inducing  them  to  perpetuate  them- 
selves through  the  production  of  children.  In 
others,  it  stimulates  the  mind,  inducing  the  crea- 
tion of  children  such  as  Lycurgus  left  to  Sparta, 
Solon  to  Athens,  Homer  and  Hesiod  to  humanity, 


THE   BANQUET  71 

children  that  built  them  temples  which  women- 
born  offspring  could  not  erect. 

These  are  the  lesser  mysteries  of  love.  The 
higher  mysteries,  then  unveiled,  disclose  a  dialectic 
ladder  of  which  the  first  rung  touches  earth,  the 
last  the  divine.  To  mount  from  one  to  the  other, 
love  should  rise  as  does  the  mind  which  from  hy- 
pothesis to  hypothesis  reaches  truth.  In  like 
manner,  love,  mounting  from  form  to  form,  reaches 
the  primordial  principle  from  which  all  beauty 
proceeds.  The  rightful  order  of  going  consists 
in  using  earthly  beauties  as  ascending  steps, 
passing  from  one  fair  form  to  all  fair  forms,  from 
fair  forms  to  beautiful  deeds,  from  beautiful  deeds 
to  beautiful  conceptions,  until  from  beautiful  con- 
ceptions comes  the  knowledge  of  beauty  supreme. 

"There,"  Socrates  continued,  "is  the  home  of 
every  science  and  of  all  philosophy.  It  is  not, 
though,  initiation's  final  stage.  The  heart  re- 
quires more.  Drawn  by  the  power  of  love,  it  can- 
not rest  in  a  sphere  of  abstraction.  It  must  go 
higher,  higher  yet,  still  higher  to  the  ultimate  de- 
gree where  it  unites  with  beauty  divine." 

That  union  which  is  the  true  life  is  not,  Socrates 
explained,  annihilation,  nor  is  it  unity,  or  at  least 
not  unity  which  excludes  division.  The  lover 
and  the  beloved  are  distinct.  They  are  two  and 
yet  but  one,  wedded  in  immaculate  beauty. 

"If  anything,"  Socrates  concluded,  "can  lend 


72  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

value  to  life  it  is  the  spectacle  of  that  beauty,  pure, 
unique,  aloof  from  earthly  attributes,  free  from 
the  vanities  of  the  world.  It  is  a  spectacle  which, 
apprehensible  to  the  mind  alone,  enables  the  be- 
holder to  create,  not  phantoms,  but  verities,  and 
in  so  doing,  to  merit  immortality,  if  mortal  may." 

Socrates,  who  had  been  leaning  against  the 
table,  lay  back  on  his  couch.  The  grave  dis- 
course was  ended.  Aristophanes  was  preparing 
to  reply.  Suddenly  there  was  violent  knocking 
at  the  door  without.  A  little  later  the  voice  of 
Alcibiades  was  heard  resounding  through  the 
court.  In  a  state  of  great  intoxication  he  was 
roaring  and  shouting  "Agathon!  Where  is  Aga- 
thon  ?  Lead  me  to  Agathon."  Then  at  once, 
massively  crowned  with  flowers,  half  supported 
by  a  flute  girl,  Alcibiades,  ribald  and  importunate, 
staggered  in.  The  grave  discourse  was  ended, 
the  banquet  as  well. 

There  is  an  Orphic  fragment  which  runs :  The 
innumerable  souls  that  are  precipitated  from  the 
great  heart  of  the  universe  swarms  as  birds  swarm. 
They  flutter  and  sink.  From  sphere  to  sphere 
they  fall  and  in  falling  weep.  They  are  thy  tears, 
Dionysos.  O  Liberator  divine,  resummon  thy 
children  to  thy  breast  of  light. 

In  the  Epiphanies  at  Eleusis  the  doctrine  dis- 
closed was  demonstrative  of  that  conception. 
The  initiate  learned  the  theosophy  of  the  soul, 


THE   BANQUET  73 

its  cycles  and  career.  In  that  career  the  soul's 
primal  home  was  color,  its  sustenance  light.  From 
beatitude  to  beatitude  it  floated,  blissfully,  in 
ethereal  evolutions,  until,  attracted  by  the  forms 
of  matter,  it  sank  lower,  still  lower,  to  awake  in 
the  senses  of  man. 

The  theory  detained  Plato.  In  the  PJicedrus, 
which  is  the  supplement  of  the  Symposion,  he 
made  it  refract  something  approaching  the  splen- 
dor of  truth  revealed.  With  Socrates  again  for 
mouthpiece,  he  declared  that  in  anterior  existence 
we  all  stood  a  constant  witness  of  the  beautiful 
and  the  true,  adding  that,  if  now  the  presence  of 
any  shape  of  earthly  loveliness  evokes  a  sense  of 
astonishment  and  delight,  the  effect  is  due  to 
reminiscences  of  what  we  once  beheld  when  we 
were  other  than  what  we  are. 

"It  seems,  then,"  Plato  noted,  "as  though  we 
had  found  again  some  object,  very  precious, 
which,  once  ours,  had  vanished.  The  impression 
is  not  illusory.  Beauty  is  really  a  belonging 
which  we  formerly  possessed.  Mingling  in  the 
choir  of  the  elect  our  souls  anteriorly  contem- 
plated the  eternal  essences  among  which  beauty 
shone.  Fallen  to  this  earth  we  recognize  it  by 
the  intermediary  of  the  most  luminous  of  our 
senses.  Sight,  though  the  subtlest  of  the  organs, 
does  not  perceive  wisdom.  Beauty  is  more  ap- 
parent.    At  the  sight  of  a  face  lit  with  its  rays, 


74  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

memory  returns,  emotions  recur,  we  think  love  is 
born  in  us  and  it  is,  yet  it  is  but  born  anew." 

There  is  a  Persian  manuscript  which,  read  one 
way,  is  an  invocation  to  love  in  verse,  and  which, 
read  backward,  is  an  essay  on  mathematics  in 
prose.  Love  is  both  a  poem  and  a  treatise.  It 
was  in  that  aspect  Plato  regarded  it.  It  had 
grown  since  Homer.  It  had  developed  since  the 
Song  of  Songs.  With  Plato  it  attained  a  height 
which  it  never  exceeded  until  Plato  himself  revived 
with  the  Renaissance.  In  the  interim  it  wavered 
and  diminished.  There  came  periods  when  it 
passed  completely  away.  Whether  Plato  fore- 
saw that  evaporation,  is  conjectural.  But  his 
projection  of  the  drunken  Alcibiades  into  the  grav- 
ity of  the  Banquet  is  significant.  The  disso- 
lute, entering  suddenly  there,  routed  beauty  and 
was,  it  may  be,  but  an  unconscious  prefigurement 
of  the  coming  orgy  in  which  love  also  disappeared. 


VII 
ROMA-AMOR 

It  was  the  mission  of  Rome  to  make  conquests, 
not  statues,  not  to  create,  but  to  quell.  Her  might 
reverberated  in  the  roar  of  her  name.  Roma 
means  strength.  It  is  only  in  reading  it  back- 
ward that  Amor  appears.  Love  there  was  second- 
ary. Might  had  precedence.  It  was  Might  that 
made  first  the  home,  then  the  state,  then  the  sen- 
ate that  ruled  the  world.  That  might,  which  was 
so  great  that  to  ablate  it  the  earth  had  to  bear 
new  races,  was  based  on  two  things,  citizenship  and 
the  family.  The  title  Romanus  sum  was  equal 
to  that  of  rex.     The  title  of  matron  was  superior. 

The  Romans,  primarily  but  a  band  of  outlaws, 
carried  away  the  daughters  of  their  neighbors  by 
force.  Their  first  conquest  was  woman.  The 
next  was  the  gods.  In  the  rude  beginnings  the 
latter  were  savage  as  they.  Revealed  in  panic 
and  thunder,  they  were  gods  of  prey  and  of  fright. 
Rome,  whom  they  mortified,  made  no  attempt  to 
impose  them  on  other  people.  With  superior 
tact  she  lured  their  gods  from  them.  She  made 
love  to  them.     With  naive  effrontery  she  seduced 


76  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

them  away.  The  process  Macrobius  described. 
At  the  walls  of  any  beleaguered  city,  a  consul,  his 
head  veiled,  pronounced  the  consecrated  words. 
"  If  there  be  here  gods  that  have  under  their  care 
this  people  and  this  city,  we  pray,  supplicate,  and 
adjure  them  to  desert  the  temples,  to  abandon  the 
altars,  to  inspire  terror  there,  to  come  to  Rome 
near  us  and  ours,  that  our  temples,  being  more 
agreeable  and  precious,  may  predispose  them  to 
protect  us.  It  being  understood  and  agreed  that 
we  dedicate  to  them  larger  altars,  grander  games."1 

It  was  with  that  formula  that  Rome  conquered 
the  world.  She  omitted  it  but  once,  at  the  walls 
of  Jerusalem.  The  deity  whom  she  forgot  there  to 
invoke,  entered  her  temples  and  overthrew  them. 

Meanwhile  the  flatteries  of  the  formula  no 
known  god  could  resist.  In  triumph  Rome  es- 
corted one  after  another  away,  leaving  the  for- 
saken but  doorposts  to  worship,  and  stimulating 
in  them  the  desire  to  become  part  of  the  favored 
city  where  their  divinities  were.  But  in  that  city 
everything  was  closed  to  them.  Deserted  by 
their  gods,  divested,  in  consequence,  of  religion 
and,  therefore,  of  every  right,  they  could  no  longer 
pray,  the  significance  of  signs  and  omens  was  lost 
to  them,  they  were  plebs.  But  the  Romans,  who 
had  captivated  the  divinities,  and  who,  through 
them,  alone  possessed  the  incommunicable  science 
1  Saturnalia,  III.,  9. 


ROM  A- AMOR  77 

of  augury,  were  patrician.     In  that  distinction  is 
the  origin  of  Rome's  aristocracy  and  her  might. 

The  might  pre-existed  in  the  despotic  organiza- 
tion of  the  home.  There  the  slaves  and  children 
were  but  things  that  could  be  sold  or  killed.  They 
were  the  chattels  of  the  paterfamilias,  whose  wife 
was  a  being  without  influence  or  initiative,  a  crea- 
ture in  the  hands  of  a  man,  unable  to  leave  him 
for  any  cause  whatever,  a  domestic  animal  over 
whom  he  had  the  right  of  life  and  death,  a  ward 
who,  regarded  as  mentally  irresponsible — propter 
animi  loevitatem — might  not  escape  his  power  even 
though  he  died,  a  woman  whom  he  could  repudi- 
ate at  will  and  of  whom  he  was  owner  and  judge. x 

Such  was  the  law  and  such  it  remained,  a  dead 
letter,  nullified  by  a  reason  profoundly  human, 
which  the  legislature  had  overlooked,  but  which 
the  Asiatics  had  foreseen  and  which  they  com- 
bated with  the  seraglio  where  woman,  restricted 
to  a  fraction  of  her  lord,  exhausted  herself  in  con- 
tending even  for  that.  But  Rome,  in  making  the 
paterfamilias  despotic,  made  him  monogamous  as 
well.  He  was  strictly  restricted  to  one  wife.  As 
a  consequence,  the  materfamilias,  while  theoreti- 

1Leg.  XII  Tabularum,  Tab.  quinta.  "Veteres  voluerunt 
foeminas  etiam  perfectae  setatis,  propter  animi  laevitatem,  in 
tutela  esse.  Itaque,  si  quis  filio  filiaeve  testamento  tutorem 
dederit,  et  ambo  ad  pubertatem  pervenerint,  filius  quidem 
desinit  habere  tutorem,  filia  vero  nihilominus  in  tutela  perma- 
net." 


78  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

cally  a  slave,  became  practically  what  woman 
with  her  husband  to  herself  and  no  rivals  to  fear 
almost  inevitably  does  become — supreme.  Legally 
she  was  the  property  of  her  husband,  actually  he 
was  hers.  When  he  returned  from  forage  or  from 
war,  she  alone  had  the  right  to  greet  him,  she  alone 
might  console  and  caress.  In  the  eye  of  the  gods 
if  not  of  the  law  she  was  his  equal  when  not  his 
superior.  By  virtue  of  the  law  he  could  divorce 
her  at  will,  he  could  kill  her  if  she  so  much  as  pre- 
sumed to  drink  wine.  By  virtue  of  her  suprem- 
acy five  hundred  and  twenty  years  passed  before 
a  divorce  occurred.1 

The  supremacy  was  otherwise  facilitated.  The 
atrium,  unlike  the  gynseceum,  was  not  a  remote 
and  inaccessible  apartment,  it  was  the  living- 
room,  the  sanctuary  of  the  household  gods,  a 
common  hall  to  which  friends  were  admitted, 
visitors  came,  and  where  the  matron  presided. 
From  the  moment  when,  in  accordance  with  the 
ceremonies  of  marriage,  her  hair — in  memory  of 
the  Sabines — parted  by  a  javelin's  point,  an  iron 
ring — symbol  of  eternity — on  her  fourth  finger, 
the  wedding  bread  eaten,  her  purchase  money 
paid,  and  she,  lifted  over  the  threshold  of  the 
atrium,  uttered  the  sacramental  words — Ubi  tu 
Cams,  ibi  ego  Caia — from  that  moment,  legally 
in  manum  viri,  actually  she  became  mistress  of 

1  Valerius  Maximus,  II.,  i.     Pliny,  XIV.,  13. 


ROMA-AMOR  79 

whatever  her  husband  possessed,  she  became  his 
associate,  his  partner,  sharing  with  him  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  patrimony,  governing  the 
household,  the  slaves,  Caius  himself. 

Said  Cato :  "  Everywhere  else  women  are  ruled 
by  men,  but  we  who  rule  all  men,  are  ruled  by 
women."  They  had  done  so  from  the  first.  The 
treatment  of  the  Sabineswas  clearly  violent  in  addi- 
tion to  being  mythical.  But,  even  in  legend,  these 
young  women  were  not  deserted  as  were  the  Ariad- 
nes  and  Medeas  of  Greece.  They  became  Roman 
matrons,  as  such  circled  with  respect.  Later, 
Egeria  instituted  with  symbolic  nymphs  a  veritable 
worship  of  women.  Thereafter  feminine  prerog- 
atives developed  from  the  theory  and  practice  of 
marriage  itself.  In  theory,  marriage  was  an  asso- 
ciation for  the  pursuit  of  things  human  and  di- 
vine. '  In  practice,  it  was  the  fusion  of  two  lives 
— a  fusion  manifestly  incomplete  if  all  were  not 
held  in  common.  Community  of  goods  means 
equality.  From  equality  to  superiority  there  is 
but  a  step.  The  matron  took  it.  She  became 
supreme  as  already  she  was  patrician. 

Between  patrician  and  plebeian  there  was  an 
abyss  too  wide  for  marriage  to  bridge.  Such  a 
union  would  have  been  regarded  as  abnormal. 
The  plebeian  did  not  at  first  dare  to  conceive  of 
such  a  thing.     When  later  he  protested  against  his 

1  "  Juris  humani  et  divini  communicatio." — Modestin. 


80  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

helotry  it  was  in  silence.  He  but  vacated  the  city 
where  the  earth  threatened  to  open  beneath  him 
and  where  his  lost  gods  brooded  inimical  still. 
Ultimately,  protests  persisting,  the  patricians  con- 
sented that  these  nobodies  should  be  somebodies, 
provided  at  least  they  were  men.  Already  Roman 
by  birth,  they  became  Roman  by  law. 

Whether  man  or  woman,  it  was  a  high  privilege 
to  be  that.  The  woman  who  was  not,  the  manu- 
mitted slave,  the  foreigner  within  the  walls,  the 
code  disdained  to  consider.  Statutes  against 
shames  took  no  account  of  her.  Beyond  the  pale 
even  of  ethics,  the  attitude  to  her  of  others  con- 
cerned but  herself. 

But  about  the  Roman  woman  were  thrown 
Lycurgian  laws.  A  forfeiture  of  her  honor  was 
a  disgrace  to  the  State.  Her  people  killed  her — 
Cognati  necanto  uti  volent — as  they  liked.  On 
the  morrow  there  was  nothing  that  told  of  the 
tragedy  save  the  absence  of  a  woman  seen  no 
more.  If  she  were  seen,  if  father  or  husband 
neglected  his  duty,  public  indictment  ensued  with 
death  or  exile  for  result.  From  the  indictment 
and  its  penalties  appeal  could  be  had.  From  the 
edile  could  be  obtained  the  Licentia  stupri,  the 
right  to  the  antique  livery  of  shame.  But  there- 
after the  purple  no  longer  bordered  the  robe  of 
the  ex-patrician.  She  could  no  longer  be  driven 
in  chariots  or  be  borne  in  litters  by  slaves;    the 


ROMA-AMOR  81 

fillet,  taken  from  her,  was  replaced  by  a  yellow 
wig;  a  harlot  then,  she  was  civilly  dead.1 

Tacitus  has  said  that  under  Tiberius  a  special 
law  had  to  be  enacted  to  prevent  women  of  rank 
from  such  descent.  During  the  austerer  days  of 
the  republic  the  derogation  was  unknown.  The 
Greek  ideal  of  woman  which  the  hetaira  exem- 
plified was  beauty.  Honor,  which  was  the  Roman 
ideal,  the  matron  achieved. 

To  the  matrons  reverently  Rome  bowed.  The 
purple  border  on  their  mantle  compelled  respect. 
The  modesty  of  their  eyes  and  ears  was  protected 
by  grave  laws.  In  days  of  danger  the  senate 
asked  their  aid.  The  gods  could  have  no  purer 
incense  than  their  prayers.  There  was  no  hom- 
age greater  than  their  esteem.  Such  a  word  as 
dignity  was  too  colorless  to  be  employed  regarding 
them,  it  was  the  term  majesty  that  was  used.  The 
vestal  was  but  a  more  perfect  type  of  these  women 
on  whose  tomb  univirce — the  wife  of  one  man — 
was  alone  inscribed. 

The  honor  of  the  Roman  matron  was  a  na- 
tional affair,  the  honor  of  a  Roman  girl  a  public 
concern.  Because  of  the  one,  royalty  was  abol- 
ished. Because  of  the  other,  the  decemvirs  fell. 
In  neither  case  was  there  revolution.     On  the 

*Leg.    XII.    Tabularum.     Valerius    Maximus,    VI.,  i. 
Livy,  X.,  31;  XXV.,  2.    Tacitus:    Annal.,    II.,  85.     Ulpia- 
nus:  de  Ritu  Nuptiarum. 
6 


82  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

contrary.  In  the  first  instance,  that  of  Lucretia, 
it  was  the  insurrection  of  Tarquin  against  the  in- 
violability of  virtue.  In  the  second,  that  of  Vir- 
ginia, it  was  the  insurrection  of  Appius  Claudius 
against  the  inviolability  of  love,  dual  insurrec- 
tions, probably  mythical,  which  Rome,  with  legen- 
dary fury,  suppressed,  and  which,  whether  his- 
toric or  imaginary,  was  typical  of  the  energetic 
character  that  made  her  what  she  was,  proud, 
despotic,  sovereign  of  the  world. 

"The  empire  that  Rome  won,"  St.  Augustin, 
with  agreeable  ingenuousness,  remarked,  "  God 
gave  her  in  order  that,  though  pagan  and  conse- 
quently unrewardable  hereafter,  her  virtues  should 
not  remain  unrecognized  below."  Nor  were  they, 
and  that,  too,  despite  the  fact  that  they  omitted  to 
endure,  except,  as  Cicero  said,  in  books;  "in  old 
books,"  he  added,  "  which  no  one  reads  any  more." 
But  in  the  interim  three  things  had  occurred. 
Greece,  wounded  to  the  death,  had  flooded  Rome 
with  the  hemorrhages  of  her  expiring  art.  Asia 
had  undyked  the  sea  of  her  corruption.  Both 
had  cascaded  their  riches.  Rome  hitherto  had 
been  poor,  she  had  been  puritan.  Hers  had  been 
the  peasant's  hard  plain  life.  The  costume  of  the 
matron,  which  custom  had  made  stately,  the  lex 
Oppia  had  made  severe.  This  statute,  passed  at 
the  time  of  the  Carthagenian  invasion,  was  a 
measure  of  public  utility  devised  to  increase  the 


ROMA-AMOR  83 

budget  of  war.  Its  abrogation  coincided  with 
the  fall  of  Macedon  and  the  return  of  ^Emilius 
Paulus,  bringing  with  him  the  sack  of  seventy 
cities,  the  prodigious  booty  of  ravaged  Greece, 
the  prelude  to  that  of  the  East.  Behind  these 
eruptions  was  the  contagion  of  fastidious  caprices 
that  demoralized  Rome. 

Heretofore,  innocent  of  excesses,  ignorant  of  re- 
finements, in  antique  simplicity,  Rome  had  sat 
briefly  and  upright  before  her  frugal  fare.  There- 
after, on  cushioned  beds  were  repasts,  long  and 
savorous,  eaten  to  the  sound  of  crotal  and  of  flute. 
There  were  after-courses  of  ballerine  and  song, 
the  refreshment  of  perfume,  the  luxurious  tonic 
of  the  bath,  the  red  feather  that  enabled  one  to 
eat  again,  the  marvels  of  Asiatic  debauchery,  the 
surprises  of  Hellenic  grace.  In  the  charm  of 
foreign  spells  former  austerities  were  forgot. 
Romans  who  had  not  been  initiated  in  them 
abroad  had  the  returning  victors  for  tutors  at 
home. 

Sylla  was  particularly  instructive.  Carthage- 
nian  in  ferocity,  Babylonian  in  lubricity,  Hamil- 
car  and  Belshazzar  in  one,  the  ugliest  and  most 
formidable  Roman  of  the  lot,  his  life,  which  an 
ulcer  ravaged,  was  a  succession  of  massacres, 
orgies,  and  crimes.  Married  one  after  another  to 
three  women  of  wealth,  who  to  him  were  but  step- 
ping stones  to  fortune,  on  a  day  when  he  was  pre- 


84  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

paring  to  give  one  of  those  festivals,  the  splendor 
and  the  art  of  which  he  had  learned  from  Mithri- 
dates,  his  third  wife  fell  ill.  Death  discourages 
Fortune.  Sylla  sent  her  a  bill  of  divorce  and 
ordered  her  to  be  taken  from  the  house,  which  was 
done,  just  in  time,  she" was  dying.  Sylla  promptly 
remarried,  then  married  again,  and  yet  again. 
Meanwhile,  he  had  a  daughter  and  an  eye  on  the 
promising  Pompey.  His  daughter  was  married. 
So  too  was  Pompey.  He  forced  his  daughter 
from  her  husband,  forced  Pompey  to  repudiate 
his  wife,  and  forced  them  to  marry. 

Sylla  had  brought  with  him  from  the  East  its 
curious  cups  in  which  blood  and  passion  mingled, 
and  spilled  them  in  the  open  streets.  Crassus 
outdid  him  in  magnificence,  and  Lucullus  eclipsed 
them  both.  Asia  had  yielded  to  these  men  the 
fortune  of  her  people,  the  honor  of  her  children, 
the  treasure  of  her  temples,  the  secrets  of  their 
sin.  The  Orientalisms  which  they  imported, 
their  deluge  of  coin,  their  art  of  marrying  cruelty 
to  pleasure,  set  Rome  mad. 

Among  the  maddest  was  Catiline.  That  tiger, 
in  whose  vestibule  were  engraved  the  laws  of  facile 
love,  affiliated  women  of  rank,  others  of  none, 
soldiers  and  slaves,  in  his  convulsive  cause. 
Shortly,  throughout  the  Latin  territory,  a  mysteri- 
ous sound  was  heard.  It  was  like  the  clash  of 
arms  afar.     The  augurs,  interrogated,  announced 


ROMA-AMOR  85 

that  the  form  of  the  State  was  about  to  change. 
The  noise  was  the  crackling  of  the  republic.1 

Before  it  fell  came  Caesar.  Sylla  told  him  to 
repudiate  his  wife  as  Pompey  had.  Caesar  de- 
clined to  be  commanded.  The  house  of  Julia,  to 
which  he  belonged,  descended,  he  declared,  from 
Venus.  Venus  Pandemos,  perhaps.  But  the  an- 
cestry was  typical.  Cinna  drafted  a  law  giving 
him  the  right  to  marry  as  often  as  he  chose. 
After  the  episodes  in  Gaul,  when  he  entered  Rome, 
his  legions  warned  the  citizens  to  have  an  eye  to 
their  wives.  Meanwhile,  he  had  repudiated  Pom- 
peia,  his  wife,  not  to  please  Sylla  but  himself,  or 
rather  because  Publius  Claudius,  a  young  gallant, 
had  been  discovered  disguised  as  a  woman  assist- 
ing at  the  mysteries  of  the  Bona  Dea,  held  on  this 
occasion  in  Caesar's  house.  To  these  ceremonies 
men  were  not  admitted.  The  affair  made  a  great 
scandal.  Pompeia  was  suspected  of  having 
helped  Publius  to  be  present.  The  suspicion 
was  probably  unfounded.  But  Caesar  held  that 
his  wife  should  be  above  suspicion.  He  divorced 
her  in  consequence  and  married  Calpurnia,  not 
for  love  but  for  place.  Her  father  was  consul. 
Caesar  wanted  his  aid  and  got  it.  Then,  after 
creating  a  solitude  and  calling  it  peace,  after  turn- 

1  Cicero:  de  Arusp.  Quod  in  agro  Latiniensi  auditus 
est  strepitus  cum  fremitu.  Ibid:  Providete  ne  reipublica 
status  commutetur. 


86  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

ing  over  two  million  people  into  so  many  dead 
flies,  after  giving  geography  such  a  twist  that  to- 
day whoso  says  Caesar  says  history — after  these 
pauses  in  the  ascending  scale  of  his  unequalled 
life,  at  the  age  of  fifty,  bald,  tired,  and  very  pale, 
there  was  brought  to  him  at  Alexandria  a  bundle, 
from  which,  when  opened,  there  emerged  a  little 
wonder  called  Cleopatra,  but  who  was  Isis  un- 
veiled.1 


Michelet:    Histoire  Romaine.       Saltus:   Imperial    Pur- 
ple. 


VIII 
ANTONY  AND   CLEOPATRA. 

In  Greece  beauty  was  the  secret  of  life.  In 
Egypt  it  was  the  secret  of  death.  The  sphinxes 
that  crouched  in  the  avenues,  the  caryatides  at  the 
palace  doors,  the  gods  on  their  pedestals,  had 
an  expression  enigmatic  but  identical.  It  was 
as  though  some  of  them  listened,  while  others 
repeated  the  story  of  the  soul's  career.  In  the 
chambers  of  the  tombs  the  echo  of  the  story 
descended.  The  dead  were  dreaming,  and  drain- 
ing it.  Saturated  with  aromatics,  wound  about 
with  spirals  of  thin  bands,  they  were  dressed  as 
for  nuptials.  On  their  faces  was  the  same  beati- 
tude that  the  statues  displayed. 

Isis  typified  that  beatitude.  The  goddess, 
in  whose  mysteries  were  taught  both  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  and  the  secret  of  its  migrations, 
was  one  of  Ishtar's  many  avatars,  the  only  one 
whose  attributes  accorded  even  remotely  with 
the  divine.  Egypt  adored  her.  There  were 
other  gods.  There  was  Osiris,  the  father;  Horus, 
the  son,  who  with  Isis  formed  the  trinity  which 
India    and    Persia    both    possessed,    and    which 


88  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

Byzance  afterward  perpetuated.  There  were 
other  gods  also,  a  hierarchy  of  great  idle  divin- 
ities with,  beneath  them,  cohorts  of  inferior 
fiends.  But  the  great  light  was  Isis.  Goddess 
of  life  and  goddess  of  death,  she  had  for  sceptre  a 
lotos  and  for  crown  a  cormorant ;  the  lotos  because 
it  is  emblematic  of  love,  and  the  cormorant  be- 
cause, however  replete,  it  says  never  Enough. 

Isis  was  the  consort  of  Osiris.  She  was  also 
his  sister.  It  was  customary  for  the  queens  of 
Egypt  to  call  themselves  after  her,  and,  like  her,  to 
marry  a  brother.  Cleopatra  followed  the  usual 
custom.  In  other  ways  she  must  have  resembled 
her.  She  was  beautiful,  but  not  remarkably  so. 
The  Egyptian  women  generally  were  good- 
looking.  The  Asiatics  admired  them  very  much. 
They  were  preferred  to  the  Chinese,  whose  eyes 
oblique  and  half-closed  perturbed  sages,  demons 
even,  with  whom,  Michelet  has  suggested,  they 
were  perhaps  akin.  Cleopatra  lacked  that  in- 
sidiousness.  Semi-Greek,  a  daughter  of  the 
Ptolomies,  she  had  the  charm  of  the  Hellenic 
hetaira.  To  aptitudes  natural  and  very  great, 
she  added  a  varied  assortment  of  accomplish- 
ments. It  is  said  that  she  could  talk  to  any  one 
in  any  tongue.  That  is  probably  an  exaggera- 
tion. But,  though  a  queen,  she  was  ambitious; 
though  a  girl,  she  was  lettered ;  succinctly,  she  was 
masterful,  a  match  for  any  man  except  Caesar. 


ANTONY  AND   CLEOPATRA       89 

Cleopatra  must  have  been  very  heady.  Caesar 
knew  how  to  keep  his  head.  He  could  not  have 
done  what  he  did,  had  he  not  known.  Dissolute, 
as  all  men  of  that  epoch  had  become,  he  differed 
from  all  of  them  in  his  epicureanism.  Like 
Epicurus,  he  was  strictly  temperate.  He  supped 
on  dry  bread.  Cato  said  that  he  was  the  first 
sober  man  that  had  tried  to  overthrow  the  republic. 
But,  then,  he  had  been  to  school,  to  the  best  of 
schools,  which  the  world  is.  His  studies  in 
anima  vili  had  taught  him  many  things,  among 
them,  how  to  win  and  not  be  won.  Cleopatra 
might  almost  have  been  his  granddaughter. 
But  he  was  Csesar.  His  eyes  blazed  with  genius. 
Besides,  he  was  the  most  alluring  of  men.  Tall, 
slender,  not  handsome  but  superb — so  superb 
that  Cicero  mistook  him  for  a  fop  from  whom 
the  republic  had  nothing  to  fear — at  seventeen 
he  had  fascinated  pirates.  Ever  since  he  had 
fascinated  queens.  In  the  long  list,  Cleopatra 
was  but  another  to  this  man  whom  the  depths 
of  Hither  Asia,  the  mysteries  that  lay  beyond, 
the  diadems  of  Cyrus  and  Alexander,  the  Vistula 
and  the  Baltic  claimed.  There  were  his  ambi- 
tions. They  were  immense.  So  were  also  Cleo- 
patra's. What  he  wanted,  she  wanted  for  him, 
and  for  herself  as  well.  She  wanted  him  sovereign 
of  the  world  and  herself  its  empress. 

These  views,  in  so  far  as  they  concerned  her, 


90  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

did  not  interest  him  very  greatly.  His  lack  of 
interest  he  was,  however,  too  well  bred  to  display. 
He  solidified  her  throne,  which  at  the  time  was 
not  stable,  left  her  a  son  for  souvenir,  went 
away,  forgot  her,  remembered  her,  invited  her 
to  Rome,  where,  presumably  with  Calpurnia's 
permission,  he  put  her  up  at  his  house,  and  again 
forgot  her.  He  was  becoming  divine,  what  is 
superior,  immortal.  Even  when  dead,  his  name, 
adopted  by  the  emperors  of  Rome,  survived  in 
Czars  and  Kaisers.  His  power  too,  coextensive 
with  Rome,  persisted.  Severed  as  it  was  like 
his  heart  when  he  fell,  the  booty  was  divided 
between  Octavius,  Lepidus,  and  Marc  Antony. 

Their  triumvirate — duumvirate  rather,  Lepi- 
dus was  nobody — matrimony  consolidated. 
Octavius  married  a  relative  of  Antony  and  Antony 
married  Octavius'  sister.  Then  the  world  was 
apportioned.  Octavius  got  the  Occident,  Antony 
the  Orient.  Rome  became  the  capital  of  the 
one,  Alexandria  that  of  the  other.  At  the  time 
Alexandria  was  Rome's  rival  and  superior. 
Rome,  unsightly  still  with  the  atrocities  of  the 
Tarquins,  had  neither  art  nor  commerce.  These 
things  were  regarded  as  the  occupations  of  slaves. 
Alexandria,  purely  Greek,  very  fair,  opulent,  and 
teeming,  was  the  universal  centre  of  both,  of 
learning  too,  of  debauchery  as  well — elements 
which  its  queen,  a  viper  of  the  Nile,  personified. 


ANTONY  AND   CLEOPATRA         91 

Before  going  there  Antony  made  and  unmade 
a  dozen  kings.  Then,  presently,  at  Tarsus  he 
ordered  Cleopatra  to  come  to  him.  Indolently, 
his  subject  obeyed. 

Caesar  claimed  descent  from  Venus.  Antony's 
tutelary  god  was  Bacchus,  but  he  claimed  descent 
from  Hercules,  whom  in  size  and  strength  he 
resembled.  The  strength  was  not  intellectual. 
He  was  an  understudy  of  genius,  a  soldier  of 
limited  intelligence,  who  tried  to  imitate  Caesar 
and  failed  to  understand  him,  a  big  barbarian 
boy,  by  accident  god  and  satrap. 

At  Rome  he  had  seen  Cleopatra.  Whether  she 
had  noticed  him  is  uncertain.  But  the  gilded  gal- 
ley with  the  purple  sails,  its  silver  oars,  its  canopy 
of  enchantments  in  which  she  went  to  him  at 
Tarsus,  has  been  told  and  retold,  sung  and  painted. 

At  the  approach  of  Isis,  the  Tarsians  crowded 
the  shore.  Bacchus,  deserted  on  his  throne, 
sent  an  officer  to  fetch  her  to  him.  Cleopatra 
insisted  that  he  come  to  her.  Antony,  amused 
at  the  impertinence,  complied.  The  infinite 
variety  of  this  woman,  that  made  her  a  suite  of 
surprises,  instantly  enthralled  him.  From  that 
moment  he  was  hers,  a  lion  in  leash,  led  captive 
into  Alexandria,  where,  initiated  by  her  into  the 
inimitable  life,  probably  into  the  refinements  of 
the  savoir-vivre  as  well,  Bacchus  developed  into 
Osiris,  while  Isis  transformed  herself  anew.     She 


92  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

drank  with  him,  fished  with  him,  hunted  with 
him,  drilled  with  him,  played  tricks  on  him,  and, 
at  night,  in  slave's  dress,  romped  with  him  in 
Rhakotis — a  local  slum — broke  windows,  beat 
the  watch,  captivating  the  captive  wholly.1 

Where  she  had  failed  with  Caesar  she  deter- 
mined to  succeed  with  him,  and  would  have 
succeeded,  had  Antony  been  Caesar.  Octavius 
was  not  Csesar,  either.  Any  man  of  ability, 
with  the  power  and  resources  of  which  Antony 
disposed,  could  have  taken  the  Occident  from 
him  and,  with  Cleopatra,  ruled  the  world. 

Together  they  dreamed  of  it.  It  was  a  beauti- 
ful dream,  inimitable  like  their  life.  Rumors  of 
the  one  and  of  the  other  reached  Octavius.  He 
waited,  not  impatiently  and  not  long.  Mean- 
while Antony  was  still  the  husband  of  Octavia. 
But  Cleopatra  had  poisoned  her  brother-husband. 
There  being,  therefore,  no  lawful  reason  why  she 
and  Antony  should  not  marry,  they  did.  To- 
gether, in  the  splendid  palace  of  the  Bruchium 
— an  antique  gem  of  which  the  historic  brilliance 
still  persists — they  seated  themselves,  he  as 
Osiris,  she  as  Isis,  on  thrones  of  gold.  Their 
children  they  declared  kings  of  kings.  Armenia, 
Phoenicia,  Media,  and  Parthea  were  allotted  to 
them.  To  Cleopatra's  realm  Antony  added 
Syria,  Lydia,  and  Cyprus.  These  distributions 
1  Plutarch:   Antonii  vita.  Cf.  Michelet,  op.  cit. 


ANTONY  AND   CLEOPATRA         93 

constituted  just  so  many  dismemberments  of  the 
res  publica,  Antony  thought  them  so  entirely 
within  the  scope  of  his  prerogatives  that  he  sent 
an  account  of  the  proceedings  to  the  senate. 
With  the  account  there  went  to  Octavia  a  bill  of 
divorce.  Rome  stood  by  indignant.  It  was 
precisely  what  Octavius  wanted. 

Octavius  had  divorced  his  wife  and  married 
a  married  woman.  According  to  the  ethics  of 
the  day,  he  was  a  model  citizen,  whereas  Antony 
throning  as  Osiris  with  a  female  Mithridates  for 
consort,  was  as  oblivious  of  Roman  dignity  as 
of  conjugal  faith.  In  addition,  it  was  found 
that  he  had  made  a  will  by  which  Rome,  in  the 
event  of  capture,  was  devised  as  tributary  city 
to  Cleopatra.  Moreover,  a  senator,  who  had  visit- 
ed Antony  at  the  Bruchium,  testified  that  he  had 
seen  him  upholding  the  woman's  litter  like  a 
slave.  It  was  obvious  that  he  was  mad,  demented 
by  her  aphrodisiacs.  But  it  was  obvious  also 
that  the  gods  of  the  East  were  rising,  that  Isis 
with  her  cormorant,  her  lotos  and  her  spangled 
arms,  was  arrayed  against  the  Roman  penates.1 

War  was  declared.  At  Actium  the  clash 
occurred.  Antony  might  have  won.  But  before 
he  had  had  time  to  lose,  Cleopatra,  with  singular 
clairvoyance,    deserted    him.     Her    reasons    for 

1  Suetonius:       Augustus,    XVIII.     Velleius     Paterculus, 
II.,  lxxxiii.     Vergil:    /Eneid,  VIII.     Horace:  Epod.,  9. 


94  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

believing  that  he  would  be  defeated  are  not  clear, 
but  her  motive  in  going  is  obvious.  She  wanted 
to  rule  the  world's  ruler,  whoever  he  might  be, 
and  she  thought  by  prompt  defection  to  find  favor 
with  Octavius. 

At  the  sight  of  her  scudding  sail  Antony  lost 
his  senses.  Instead  of  remaining  and  winning, 
as  he  might  have,  he  followed  her.  Together 
they  reached  Alexandria.  But  there  it  was  no 
longer  the  inimitable  life  that  they  led,  rather 
that  of  the  inseparables  in  death,  or  at  least 
Antony  so  fancied.  Cleopatra  intoxicated  him 
with  funereal  delights  while  corresponding  in 
secret  with  Octavius  who  had  written  engagingly 
to  her.  In  the  Bruchium  the  nights  were  festi- 
vals. By  day  she  experimented  on  slaves  with 
different  poisons.  Antony  believed  that  she 
was  preparing  to  die  with  him.  She  had  no 
such  intention.  She  was  preparing  to  be  rid  of 
him.  Then,  suddenly,  the  enemy  was  at  the 
gates.  Antony  challenged  Octavius  to  single 
combat.  Octavius  sent  him  word  that  there 
were  many  other  ways  in  which  he  could  end  his 
life.  At  that  the  lion  roared.  Even  then  he 
thought  he  might  demolish  him.  He  tried.  He 
went  forth  to  fight.  But  Cleopatra  had  other 
views.  The  infantry,  the  cavalry,  the  flotilla, 
joined  the  Roman  forces.  The  viper  of  the  Nile 
had    betrayed    him.     Bacchus    had    also.     The 


ANTONY  AND   CLEOPATRA         95 

night  had  been  stirred  by  the  hum  of  harps  and 
the  cries  of  bacchantes  bearing  the  tutelary  god 
to  the  Romans. 

Antony,  staggering  back  to  the  palace,  was 
told  that  Cleopatra  had  killed  herself.  She  had 
not,  but  fearful  lest  he  kill  her,  she  had  hidden 
with  her  treasure  in  a  temple.  Antony,  after 
the  Roman  fashion,  kept  always  with  him  a 
slave  who  should  kill  him  when  his  hour  was 
come.  The  slave's  name,  Plutarch  said,  was 
Eros.  Antony  called  him.  Eros  raised  a  sword, 
but  instead  of  striking  his  master,  struck  himself. 
Antony  reddened  and  imitated  him.  Another 
slave  then  told  him  that  Cleopatra  still  lived. 
He  had  himself  taken  to  where  she  was,  and 
died  while  attempting  to  console  this  woman  who 
was  preparing  for  the  consolations  of  Octavius. 

It  is  said  that  she  received  the  conqueror 
magnificently.  But  his  engaging  letters  had  been 
ruses  de  guerre.  They  had  triumphed.  The 
new  Caesar  wanted  to  triumph  still  further.  He 
wanted  Cleopatra,  a  chain  about  her  neck, 
dragged  after  his  chariot  through  Rome.  He 
wanted  in  that  abjection  to  triumph  over  the 
entire  East.  Instead  of  yielding  to  her,  as  she 
had  expected,  he  threatened  to  kill  her  children 
if  she  eluded  him  by  killing  herself.  The  threat 
was  horrible.  But  more  horrible  still  was  the 
thought  of  the  infamy  to  be. 


96  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

Shortly,  on  a  bed  of  gold,  dressed  as  for  nuptials, 
she  was  found  dead  among  her  expiring  women, 
one  of  whom  even  then  was  putting  back  on  her 
head  her  diadem  which  had  fallen.  At  last  the 
cormorant  had  cried  "Enough!" 

Said  Horace:  "Nunc  est  bibendum." 


IX 
THE   IMPERIAL  ORGY 

Death,  in  taking  Cleopatra,  closed  the  doors 
of  the  temple  Janus.  After  centuries  of  turmoil, 
there  was  peace.  The  reign  of  the  Caesars  had 
begun.  Octavius  became  Augustus,  the  rest  of 
the  litter  divine.  The  triumvirs  of  war  were 
succeeded  by  the  triumvirs  of  love.  These  were 
the  poets. 

Catullus  had  gone  with  the  republic.  In 
verse  he  might  have  been  primus.  He  was  too 
negligent.  His  microscopic  masterpieces  form 
but  a  brief  bundle  of  pastels.  The  face  repeated 
there  is  Lesbia's.  He  saw  her  first  lounging  in 
a  litter  that  slaves  carried  along  the  Sacred  Way. 
Immediately  he  was  in  love  with  her.  The  love 
was  returned.  In  the  delight  of  it  the  poet  was 
born.  His  first  verses  were  to  her,  so  also  were 
his  last.  But  Lesbia  wearied  of  song  and  kisses, 
at  least  of  his.  She  eloped  with  his  nearest 
friend.  In  the  Somnambula  the  tenor  sings  0 
per  die  non  posso  odiarte — Why  can  I  not  hate 
thee  ?  The  song  is  but  a  variant  on  that  of  Catullus. 
Odi  et  amo,  I  love  and  hate  you,  he  called  after 
7 


98  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

her.  But,  if  she  heard,  she  heeded  as  little  as 
Beatrice  did  when  Dante  cursed  the  day  he  saw 
her  first.  Dante  ceased  to  upbraid,  but  did  not 
cease  to  love.  He  was  but  following  the  example 
of  Catullus,  with  this  difference:  Beatrice  went 
to  heaven,  Lesbia  to  hell,  to  an  earthly  hell,  the 
worst  of  any,  to  a  horrible  inn  on  the  Tiber 
where  sailors  brawled.  She  descended  to  that, 
fell  there,  rather.     Catullus  still  loved  her. 

At  the  sight  of  Cynthia  another  poet  was  born. 
What  Lesbia  pulchra  had  been  to  Catullus, 
Cynthia  pulchrior  became  to  Propertius.  He 
swore  that  she  should  be  his  sole  muse,  and  kept 
his  word,  in  so  far  as  verse  was  concerned.  Other- 
wise, he  was  less  constant.  It  is  doubtful  if  she 
deserved  more,  or  as  much.  Never  did  a  girl 
succeed  better  in  tormenting  a  lover,  never  was 
there  a  lover  so  poetically  wretched  as  he.  In 
final  fury  he  flung  at  her  farewells  that  were 
maledictions,  only  to  be  recaptured,  beaten  even, 
subjugated  anew.  She  made  him  love  her. 
When  she  died,  her  death  nearly  killed  him. 
Nearly,  but  not  quite.  He  survived,  and,  first 
among  poets,  intercepted  the  possibility  of  reunion 
there  where  all  things  broken  are  made  complete, 
and  found  again  things  vanished — Lethum  non 
omnia  finit. 

Horace     resembled     him     very     remotely.     A 
little  fat    man — brevis  atque    obesus,   Suetonius 


THE   IMPERIAL  ORGY  99 

said — he  waddled  and  wallowed  in  the  excesses 
of  the  day,  telling,  in  culpable  iambics,  of  fair 
faces,  facile  amours,  easy  epicureanism,  rose- 
crowned  locks,  yet  telling  of  them — and  of  other 
matters  less  admissible — on  a  lyre  with  wonder- 
ful chords.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  third  book 
of  the  Odes,  he  declared  that  he  had  completed 
a  monument  which  the  succession  of  centuries 
without  number  could  not  destroy.  "  I  shall  not 
die,"  he  added.  He  was  right.  Because  of  that 
flame  of  fair  faces,  lovers  turn  to  him  still.  Be- 
cause of  his  iambics,  he  has  a  niche  in  the  hearts 
of  the  polite.  Versatile  in  love  and  in  verse,  his 
inconstancy  and  his  art  are  nowhere  better  dis- 
played than  in  the  incomparable  Donee  gratus 
eram  tibi,  which  Ponsard  rewrote: 

HORACE. 

Tant  que  tu  m'as  aime,  que  nul  autre  plus  digne 
N'entourait  de  ses  bras  ton  col  blanc  comme  un  cygne, 
J'ai  vecu  plus  heureux  que  Xerxes  le  grand  roi. 

LYDIE. 

Tant  que  tu  n'as  aime  personne  plus  que  moi, 
Quand  Chloe  n'etait  pas  preferee  a  Lydie, 
J'ai  vecu  plus  illustre  et  plus  here  qu'Ilie. 

HORACE. 

J'appartiens  maintenant  a  la  blonde  Chloe, 
Qui  plait  par  sa  voix  douce  et  son  luth  enjoue. 
Je  suis  pret  a  mourir  pour  prolonger  sa  vie. 


100  HISTORIA  AMORIS 


LYDIE. 


Calais  maintenant  tient  mon  ame  asservie, 
Nous  brulons  tous  les  deux  de  mutuels  amours, 
Et  je  mourrais  deux  fois  pour  prolonger  ses  jours. 


HORACE. 


Mais  quoi!     Si  j'ai  regret  de  ma  premiere  chaine? 
Si  Venus  de  retour  sous  son  joug  me  ramene  ? 
Si  je  refuse  a  l'autre,  et  te  rends  mon  amour  ? 

LYDIE. 

Encor  que  Calais  soit  beau  comme  le  jour, 

Et  toi  plus  inconstant  que  la  feuille  inconstante, 

Avec  toi  je  vivrais  et  je  mourrais  contente. 

Horace  was  the  poet  of  ease,  Catullus  of  love, 
Propertius  of  passion,  Tibullus  of  sentiment. 
Ovid  was  the  poet  of  pleasure.  A  man  of  means, 
of  fashion,  of  the  world,  what  to-day  would  be 
called  a  gentleman,  he  might  have  been  laureate 
of  the  Empire.  Corinna  interfered.  Corinna 
was  his  figurative  muse.  Whether  she  were  one 
or  many  is  uncertain,  but  nominally  at  least  it 
was  for  her  that  he  wrote  the  suite  of  feverish 
fancies  entitled  the  "Art  of  Love"  and  which  were 
better  entitled  the  "Art  of  not  Loving  at  all." 
Subsequently,  he  planned  a  great  Homeric  epic. 
But,  if  Corinna  inspired  masterpieces,  she  gave 
him  no  time  to  complete  them.  She  wanted  her 
poet  to  herself.  She  refused  to  share  him  even 
with  the  gods.  It  is  supposed  that  Corinna 
was   Julia,   daughter  of  Augustus.     Because   of 


THE   IMPERIAL  ORGY  101 

her  eyes,  more  exactly  because  of  her  father's, 
Ovid  was  banished  among  barbarian  brutes. 
It  was  rather  a  frightful  penalty  for  participating 
in  the  indiscretions  of  a  woman  who  had  always 
been  the  reverse  of  discreet.  Corinna,  as  de- 
scribed by  Ovid,  was  a  monster  of  perversity. 
Julia,  as  described  by  Tacitus,  yielded  to  her 
nothing  in  that  respect. 

The  epoch  itself  was  strange,  curiously  fecund 
in  curious  things  that  became  more  curious  still. 
Rome  then,  thoroughly  Hellenized,  had  become 
very  fair.  There  were  green  terraces  and  por- 
phyry porticoes  that  leaned  to  a  river  on  which 
red  galleys  passed,  there  were  bronze  doors  and 
garden  roofs,  glancing  villas  and  temples  more 
brilliant  still.  There  were  spacious  streets,  a 
Forum  curtained  with  silk,  the  glint  and  evoca- 
tions of  triumphal  war.  There  were  theatres 
in  which  a  multitude  could  jeer  at  an  emperor, 
and  arenas  in  which  an  emperor  could  watch  a 
multitude  die.  On  the  stage,  there  were  tragedies, 
pantomime,  farce.  There  were  races  in  the 
circus  and,  in  the  sacred  groves,  girls  with  the 
Orient  in  their  eyes  and  slim  waists  that  swayed 
to  the  crotals.  Into  the  arenas  patricians  de- 
scended, in  the  amphitheatre  were  criminals 
from  Gaul,  in  the  Forum,  philosophers  from 
Greece.  For  Rome's  entertainment  the  moun- 
tains sent  lions;   the  deserts  giraffes;   there  were 


102  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

boas  from  the  jungles,  bulls  from  the  plains, 
hippopotami  from  the  rushes  of  the  Nile,  and, 
above  them,  beasts  greater  than  they — the  Caesars. 

There  had  been  the  first,  memory  of  whose 
grandiose  figure  lingered  still.  Rome  recalled  the 
unforgettable,  and  recalled,  too,  his  face  which 
incessant  debauches  had  blanched.  After  him 
had  come  Augustus,  a  pigmy  by  comparison,  yet 
otherwise  more  depraved.  He  gone,  there  was 
the  spectacle  of  Tiberius  devising  infamies  so 
monstrous  that  to  describe  them  new  words  were 
coined.  That  being  insufficient,  there  followed 
Caligula,  without  whom  Nero,  Claud,  Domitian, 
Commodus,  Caracalla,  and  Heliogabalus  could 
never  have  been.  It  was  he  who  gave  them 
both  inspiration  and  incentive.  It  was  he  who 
built  the  Cloacus  Maximus  in  which  all  Rome 
rolled. 

Augustus  had  done  a  little  digging  for  it  himself, 
but  hypocritically  as  he  did  everything,  devising 
ethical  laws  as  a  cloak  for  turpitudes  of  his  own. 
Mecsenas,  his  minister  and  lackey,  divorced  and 
remarried  twenty  times.  Augustus  repudiated 
his  own  marriages,  those  of  his  kin  as  well.  Sue- 
tonius said  of  Caligula  that  it  was  uncertain 
which  were  viler,  the  unions  he  contracted,  their 
brevity,  or  their  cause.  With  such  examples,  it 
was  inevitable  that  commoner  people  united  but 
to  part,  and  that,  insensibly,  the  law  annulled  as 


THE   IMPERIAL  ORGY  103 

a  caprice  a  clause  that  defined  marriage  as  the 
inseparable  life.1 

Under  the  Caesars  marriage  became  a  temporary 
arrangement,   abandoned   and    re-established    as 
often  as  one  liked.     Seneca  said  that  women  of 
rank    counted    their    years    by    their    husbands. 
Juvenal  said  that  it  was  in  that  fashion  that  they 
counted  their  days.     Tertullian  added  that  divorce 
was   the   result  of  marriage.     Divorce,  however, 
was  not  obligatory.     Matrimony  was.     Accord- 
ing to  the  Lex  Pappea  Poppcea,  whoso  at  twenty- 
five  was  not  married,  whoso,  divorced  or  widowed, 
did    not    remarry,  whoso,   though   married,  was 
childless,    ipso   facto    became    a    public    enemy, 
incapable  of  inheriting  or  of  serving  the  State. 
To    this    law — an    Augustan    hypocrisy — only    a 
technical    attention     was    paid.     Men    married 
just  enough  to  gain  a  position  or  inherit  a  legacy. 
The  next  day  they  got  a  divorce.     At  the  moment 
of   need    a    child   was    adopted.      The    moment 
passed  the  brat  was  disowned.     As  with  men  so 
with  women.     The    univira    became    the  many- 
husbanded  wife,  occasionally  a  matron  with  no  hus- 
band at  all,  one  who,  to  escape  the  consequences 
of  the  lex  Pappea  Poppcea,  hired  a  man  to  loan 
her  his   name,  and  who,  with  an   establishment 
of  her  own,  was  free  to  do  as  she  liked,  to  imitate 
men  at  their  worst,  to  fight  like  them  and  with 
xCod.  2,  deinutil.  Stipulat. 


104  HISTORIA  AMORIS. 

them  for  power,  to  dabble  in  the  bloody  dramas 
of  State,  to  climb  on  the  throne  and  kill  there 
or  be  killed;  perhaps,  less  ambitiously,  whipping 
her  slaves,  summoning  the  headsman  to  them, 
quieting  her  nerves  with  drink,  appearing  on  the 
stage,  in  the  arena  even,  contending  as  a  gladiator 
there,  and  remaining  a  patrician  meanwhile. 

In  those  days  a  sin  was  a  prayer,  and  a  prayer, 
Perseus  said,  was  an  invocation  at  which  a  mere- 
trix  would  blush  to  hear  pronounced  aloud. 
Religion  sanctioned  anything.  The  primal  gods, 
supplemented  with  the  lords  and  queens  of  other 
skies,  had  made  Rome  an  abridgment  of  every 
superstition,  the  temple  of  every  crime.  Asiatic 
monsters,  which  Hellenic  poetry  had  deodorized, 
landed  there  straight  from  the  Orient,  their 
native  hideousness  unchanged.  It  was  only  the 
graceful  Greek  myths  that  Rome  transformed. 
Eros,  who  in  Arcady  seemed  atiptoe,  so  delicately 
did  he  tread  upon  the  tender  places  of  the  soul, 
acquired,  behind  the  mask  of  Cupid,  a  malicious- 
ness that  was  simian.  Aphrodite,  whose  eyes 
had  been  lifted  to  the  north  and  south,  and  who 
in  Attica  was  draped  with  light,  obtained  as 
Venus  the  leer  of  the  Lampsacene.  Long  since 
from  Syria  Astarte  had  arrived,  as  already,  torn 
by  Cilician  pirates  from  Persia,  Mithra  had 
come,  while,  from  Egypt,  had  strayed  Apis  from 
whose  mouth  two  phalluses  issued  horizontally. 


THE   IMPERIAL  ORGY  105 

These  were  Rome's  gods,  the  divinities  about 
whom  men  and  maidens  assembled,  and  to  whom 
pledges  were  made.  There  were  others,  so  many, 
in  such  hordes  had  they  come,  that  Petronius 
said  they  outnumbered  the  population.  The 
lettered  believed  in  them  no  more  than  we  do. 
'  But,  like  the  Athenians,  they  lived  among  a  people 
that  did.  Moreover,  the  lettered  were  few. 
Rome,  brutal  at  heart,  sanguinary  and  voluptuous, 
fought,  she  did  not  read.  She  could  applaud,  but 
not  create.  Her  literature,  like  her  gods,  her 
art,  her  corruption,  had  come  from  afar.  Her 
own  breasts  were  sterile.  When  she  gave  birth, 
it  was  to  a  litter  of  monsters,  by  accident  to  a 
genius,  again  to  a  poet,  to  Csesar  and  to  Lucretius, 
the  only  men  of  letters  ever  born  within  her 
walls. 

Meanwhile,  though  the  Pantheon  was  obvi- 
ously but  a  lupanar,  the  people  clung  piously  to 
creeds  that  justified  every  disorder,  tenaciously 
to  gods  that  sanctified  every  vice,  and  fervently 
to  Caesars  that  incarnated  them  all. 

The  Csesars  were  religion  in  a  concrete  form. 
Long  before,  Ennius,  the  Homer  of  Latium,  had 
announced  that  the  gods  were  but  great  men. 
The  Csesars  accepted  that  view  with  amplifica- 
tions. They  became  greater  than  any  that  had 
been.  Save  Death,  who,  in  days  that  precede 
the  fall  of  empires,  is  the  one  divinity  whom  all 


106  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

fear  and  in  whom  all  believe,  they  alone  were 
august.  In  the  absence  of  the  aromas  of  tradi- 
tion, they  had  something  superior.  The  Olym- 
pians inspired  awe,  the  Caesars  fright.  Death 
was  their  servant.  They  ordered.  Death  obeyed. 
In  the  obedience  was  apotheosis.  In  the  apothe- 
osis was  the  delirium  that  madmen  know.  At 
their  feet,  Rome,  mad  as  they,  built  them  temples, 
raised  them  shrines,  created  for  them  hierophants 
and  flamens,  all  the  phantasmagoria  of  the 
megalomaniac  Alexander,  and,  with  it,  a  worship 
which  they  accepted  as  their  due  perhaps,  but  in 
which  their  reason  fled.  That  of  Caesar  with- 
stood it.  Insanity  began  with  Antony,  who 
called  himself  Osiris.  The  brain  of  Tiberius, 
very  steady  at  first,  was  insufficiently  strong  to 
withstand  the  nectar  fumes.  The  latter  intoxi- 
cated Caligula  so  sheerly  that  he  invited  the  moon 
to  share  his  couch.  Thereafter,  the  palace  of  the 
Caesars  became  a  vast  court  in  which  the  wives 
and  daughters  of  the  nobility  assisted  at  perver- 
sions which  a  Ministry  of  Pleasure  devised,  and 
where  Rome  abandoned  whatever  she  had  held 
holy,  the  innocence  of  girlhood,  patrician  pride, 
everything,  shame  included. 

In  post-pagan  convulsions  there  was  much  that 
was  very  vile.  But  there  is  one  aspect  of  evil 
which  subsequent  barbarism  reproved,  and  in 
which    Rome    delighted.      It    was    the    symbol- 


THE   IMPERIAL  ORGY  107 

ized  shapes  of  sin,  open  and  public,  for  which 
in  modern  speech  there  is  no  name,  and  which 
were  then  omnipresent,  sung  in  verse,  exhibited 
on  the  stage,  paraded  in  the  streets,  put  on  the 
amulets  that  girls  and  matrons  wore,  put  in 
the  nursery,  consecrated  by  custom,  art,  re- 
ligion, and  since  recovered  from  disinterred  Pom- 
peii. "The  mouth,"  said  Quintillian,  " does  not 
dare  describe  what  the  eyes  behold."  Rome 
that  had  made  orbis  and  urbs  synonymous 
was  being  conquered  by  the  turpitudes  of  the 
quelled. 

"I  have  told  of  the  Prince,"  said  Suetonius, 
"I  will  tell  now  of  the  Beast."  It  was  his  privi- 
lege. He  wrote  in  Latin.  In  English  it  is  not 
possible.  Gautier  declared  that  the  inexpressible 
does  not  exist.  Even  his  pen  might  have  balked, 
had  he  tried  it  on  the  imperial  orgy.  The  ulcer 
that  ravaged  Sylla,  gangrened  a  throne,  and  de- 
composed a  world.  Less  violent  under  Tiberius 
than  under  Caligula,  under  Nero  the  fever  rose 
to  the  brain  and  added  delirium  to  it.  In  reading 
accounts  of  the  epoch  you  feel  as  though  you 
were  assisting  at  the  spectacle  of  a  gigantic  asylum, 
from  which  the  keepers  are  gone,  and  of  which  the 
inmates  are  omnipotent.  But,  in  spite  of  the 
virulence  of  the  virus,  the  athletic  constitution 
of  the  empire,  joined  to  its  native  element  of 
might,  resisted  the  disease  so  potently  that  one 


108  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

must  assume  that  there  was  there  a  vitality 
which  no  other  people  had  had,  a  hardiness  that 
enabled  Rome  to  survive  excesses  in  which 
Nineveh  and  Babylon  fainted.  From  the  dis- 
ease itself  Rome  might  have  recovered.  It  was 
the  delirium  that  brought  her  down.  That 
delirium,  mounting  always,  increased  under 
Commodus,  heightened  under  Caracalla,  and 
reached  its  crisis  in  Heliogabalus.  Thereafter 
for  a  while  it  waned  only  to  flame  again  under 
Diocletian.  The  virus  remained.  To  extirpate 
it  the  earth  had  to  produce  new  races.  Already 
they  were  on  their  way. 

Meanwhile,  though  there  were  reigns  when, 
in  the  words  of  Tacitus,  virtue  was  a  sentence  of 
death,  the  emperors  were  not  always  insane. 
Vespasian  was  a  soldier,  Hadrian  a  scholar,  Pius 
Antoninus  a  philosopher,  and  Marcus  Aurelius 
a  sage.  Rome  was  not  wholly  pandemoniac. 
There  is  goodness  everywhere,  even  in  evil. 
There  was  goodness  even  in  Rome.  Stoicism,  a 
code  of  the  highest  morality,  had  been  adopted 
by  the  polite.  Cicero,  in  expounding  it,  had  stated 
that  no  one  could  be  a  philosopher  who  has  not 
learned  that  vice  should  be  avoided,  however 
concealable  it  may  be.  Aristotle  had  praised 
virtue  because  of  its  extreme  utility.  Seneca  said 
that  vices  were  maladies,  among  which  Zeno 
catalogued  love,  as   Plato  did   crime.     To   him, 


THE   IMPERIAL  ORGY  109 

vice  stood  to  virtue  as  disease  does  to  health. 
All  guilt,  he  said,  is  ignorance. 

Expressions  such  as  these  appealed  to  a  class 
relatively  small,  but  highly  lettered,  whom  the 
intense  realism  of  the  amphitheatre,  the  sugges- 
tive postures  of  the  pantomimes,  and  the  Orient- 
alism of  the  orgy  shocked.  There  are  now 
honest  men  everywhere,  even  in  prison.  Even 
in  Rome  there  were  honest  men  then.  Moreover, 
paganism  at  its  worst,  always  tolerant,  was  often 
poetic.  Then,  too,  life  in  the  imperial  epoch, 
while  less  fair  than  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  was  so 
splendidly  brilliant  that  it  exhausted  possible 
glamour  for  a  thousand  years  to  come.  Dazzling 
in  violence,  its  coruscations  blinded  the  barba- 
rians so  thoroughly  that  thereafter  there  was  but 
night. 


FINIS    AMORIS 

The  first  barbarian  that  invaded  Rome  was  a 
Jew.  There  was  then  there  a  small  colony  of 
Hebrews.  Porters,  pedlers,  rag-pickers,  valets- 
de-place,  they  were  the  descendants  mainly  of 
former  prisoners  of  war.  The  Jew  had  a  mes- 
sage for  them.  It  was  very  significant.  But  it 
conflicted  so  entirely  with  orthodox  views  that 
there  were  few  whom  it  did  not  annoy.  A  dis- 
turbance ensued.  The  ghetto  was  raided.  A 
complaint  for  inciting  disorder  was  lodged  against 
a  certain  Christos,  of  whom  nothing  was  known, 
and  who  had  eluded  arrest. 

Rome,  through  her  relations  with  Syria,  was 
probably  the  first  Occidental  city  in  which  the 
name  was  pronounced.  Though  the  message 
behind  it  annoyed  many,  others  accepted  it  at 
once.  These  latter,  the  former  denounced.  Some 
suppression  ensued.  But  it  had  no  religious  sig- 
nificance. The  purport  of  the  message  and  the 
attitude  of  those  who  accepted  it  was  seditious. 
Both  denied  the  divinity  of   the   Caesars.    That 


FINIS  AMORIS  111 

was  treason.  In  addition,  they  announced  the 
approaching  end  of  the  world.  That  was  a  slur 
on  the  optimism  of  State.  A  law  was  passed — 
Non  licet  esse  Christianos.  None  the  less,  they 
multiplied.  The  message  that  had  been  brought 
to  Rome  was  repeated  throughout  the  Roman 
world.  It  crossed  the  frontiers.  It  reached  races 
of  whom  Rome  had  never  heard.  They  came 
and  peered  at  her.  Over  the  context  of  the  mes- 
sage they  drank  hydromel  to  her  fall. 

The  message,  initially  significant,  dynamic  at 
birth,  developed  under  multiplying  hands  into  a 
force  so  disruptive  that  it  shook  the  gods  from  the 
skies,  buried  them  beneath  their  ruined  temples, 
and  in  derision  tossed  after  them  their  rites  for 
shroud.  In  the  convulsions  a  page  of  history 
turned.  The  great  book  of  paganism  closed. 
Another  opened.     In  it  was  a  new  ideal  of  love. 

Realization  was  not  immediate.  Entirely  un- 
contemplated and  equally  unforeseen,  the  ideal 
was  an  after-growth,  a  blossom  among  other  ruins, 
a  flower  that  developed  subtly  with  the  Rosa  mys- 
tica  from  higher  shrines. 

Meanwhile,  the  message  persisted.  Titularly 
an  evangel,  it  meant  good  news.  The  Christ  had 
said  to  his  disciples:  "As  ye  go,  preach,  saying, 
The  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand — for  verily  I  say 
unto  you,  Ye  shall  not  have  gone  over  the  cities 
of  Israel  till  the  Son  of  Man  be  come." 


112  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

"All  these  things  shall  come  upon  this  gen- 
eration," were  his  subsequent  and  explicit 
words.  After  the  incident  in  the  wilderness  he 
declared :  "  The  time  is  fulfilled  and  the  King- 
dom of  God  is  at  hand."  Later  he  asserted: 
"Verily  I  say  unto  you  that  there  be  some  of 
them  that  stand  by  which  shall  in  no  wise  taste 
of  death  till  they  see  the  Kingdom  of  God  come 
with  power."  * 

In  repeating  these  tidings,  the  evangelists  lived 
in  a  state  of  constant  expectation.  Their  watch- 
word was  "Maran  atha" — the  Lord  cometh.  In 
fancy  they  saw  themselves  in  immediate  Edens, 
seated  on  immutable  thrones. 

The  corner-stone  of  the  early  Church  was  based 
on  that  idea.  When,  later,  it  was  recognized  as  a 
misconception,  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  was  interpreted  as  the  establishment  of  the 
Christian  creed. 

Jesus  had  no  intention  of  founding  a  new  relig- 
ion. He  came  to  prepare  men  not  for  life,  but  for 
death.  He  believed  that  the  world  was  to  end. 
Had  he  not  so  believed,  his  condemnation  of  labor, 
his  prohibition  against  wealth,  his  injunction  to 
forsake  all  things  for  his  sake,  his  praise  of  celi- 
bacy, his  disregard  of  family  ties,  and  his  abase- 
ment of  marriage  would  be  without  meaning. 
Observance  of  his  orders  he  regarded  as  a  neces- 
1  Matthew  xvi.  21. 


FINIS  AMORIS  113 

sary  preparation  for  an  event  then  assumed  to  be 
near.     It  was  exacted  as  a  means  of  grace. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  that  there  was  an 
esoteric  doctrine  which  only  the  more  spiritual 
among  the  disciples  received.  The  significant 
threat,  "In  this  life  ye  shall  have  tribulation," 
contains  a  distinct  suggestion  of  other  views. 
Possibly  they  concerned  less  the  termination  of 
the  world  than  the  termination  of  life.  Life  ex- 
tinct, obviously  there  must  ensue  that  peace  which 
passeth  all  understanding,  the  Pratscha-Paramita, 
or  beyond  all  knowledge,  which  long  before  had 
been  taught  by  the  Buddha,  in  whose  precepts  it 
is  not  improbable  that  Jesus  was  versed. 

To-day  there  are  four  gospels.  Originally 
there  were  fifty.  In  some  of  them  succincter 
views  may  have  been  expressed.  The  possibility, 
surviving  texts  support.  These  texts  are  pro- 
vided by  Clement  of  Alexandria.  They  are 
quoted  by  him  from  the  Gospel  according  to  the 
Egyptians,  an  Evangel  that  existed  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  second  century  and  which  was  then 
regarded  as  canonical.  In  one  of  them,  Jesus 
said :  "  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  work  of  woman, 
which  is  generation  and  death."  In  another, 
being  asked  how  long  life  shall  continue,  he  an- 
swered:  "So  long  as  women  bear  children."  * 

These  passages  seem  conclusive.  Even  other- 
^tromata,  III.,  6-9. 


114  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

wise,  the  designed  effect  of  the  exoteric  doctrine 
was  identical.  It  eliminated  love  and  condemned 
the  sex.  In  the  latter  respect,  Paul  was  particu- 
larly severe.  In  violent  words  he  humiliated 
woman.  He  enjoined  on  her  silence  and  sub- 
mission. He  reminded  her  that  man  was  created 
in  the  image  of  God,  while  she  was  but  created 
for  him.  He  declared  that  he  who  giveth  her  in 
marriage  doth  well,  but  he  that  giveth  her  not 
doth  better.1 

Theoretically,  as  well  as  canonically,  marriage 
thereafter  was  regarded  as  unholy.  The  only 
union  in  which  it  was  held  that  grace  could  pos- 
sibly be,  was  one  that  in  its  perfect  immaculacy 
was  a  negation  of  marriage  itself.  St.  Sebastian 
enjoined  any  other  form.  The  injunction  was 
subsequently  ratified.  It  was  ecclesiastically  ad- 
judged that  whoso  declared  marriage  preferable 
to  celibacy  be  accursed.2  St.  Augustin,  more 
leniently,  permitted  marriage,  on  condition,  how- 
ever, that  the  married  in  no  circumstance  over- 
looked the  object  of  their  union,  which  object  was 
the  creation  of  children,  not  to  love  them,  he  added, 
but  to  increase  the  number  of  the  servants  of  the 
Lord.3 

1  Timothy  ii.  11-12.     1  Corinthians  ix.  9.     1  Corinthians 
vii.  38. 

2  Concil.  Trident.,  sess.  XXIV.,  canon  10. 

3  Augustin:  De  bono  conjugio. 


FINIS  AMORIS  115 

St.  Augustin  was  considerate.  But  Jesus  had 
been  indulgent.  In  the  plentitudes  of  his  charity 
there  was  both  commiseration  and  forgiveness. 
Throughout  his  entire  ministry  he  wrote  but  once. 
It  was  on  an  occasion  when  a  woman  was  brought 
before  him.  Her  accusers  were  impatient.  Jesus 
bent  forward  and  with  a  finger  wrote  on  the 
ground.  The  letters  were  illegible.  But  the 
symbol  of  obliteration  was  in  the  dust  which  the 
wind  would  disperse.  The  charge  was  impa- 
tiently repeated.  Jesus  straightened  himself .  With 
the  weary  comprehension  of  one  to  whom  hearts 
are  as  books,  he  looked  at  them.  "  Whoever  is 
without  sin  among  you,  may  cast  the  first  stone." 

The  sins  of  Mary  Magdalen  were  many.  He 
forgave  them,  for  she  had  loved  much.  His  in- 
dulgence was  real  and  it  was  infinite.  Yet  occa- 
sionally his  severity  was  as  great.  At  the  mar- 
riage of  Cana  he  said  to  his  mother:  'Woman, 
what  have  I  to  do  with  thee?"  In  the  house  of 
the  chief  of  the  Pharisees  he  more  emphatically 
announced :  "  If  any  man  come  unto  me  and  hate 
not  his  father  and  mother  and  wife  and  children 
and  brethren  and  sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life 
also,  he  cannot  be  my  disciple."  Elsewhere  he 
advocated  celibacy  enforced  with  the  knife. 
John,  his  favorite  disciple,  beheld  those  who  had 
practised  it  standing  among  the  redeemed.1 
1  Matthew  xix.  12.     Revelations  xiv. 


116  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

That  vision  peopled  the  deserts  with  hermits. 
It  filled  the  bastilles  of  God,  the  convents  and 
monasteries  of  pre-mediaeval  days.  The  theory 
of  it  was  adopted  by  kings  on  their  thrones. 
Lovers  in  their  betrothals  engaged  to  observe  it 
reciprocally.  Husbands  and  wives  separated  that 
they  might  live  more  purely  apart. 

The  theory,  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  paganism, 
was  contrary  also  to  that  of  the  Mosaic  law.  The 
necessity  of  marriage  was  one  of  the  six  hundred 
and  thirteen  Hebraic  precepts.  The  man  who 
omitted  to  provide  himself  with  heirs  became  a 
homicide.  In  the  Greek  republics  celibacy  was 
penalized.  In  Rome,  during  the  republic,  bache- 
lors were  taxed.  Under  the  empire  they  could 
neither  inherit  nor  serve  the  State.  But  the  law 
was  evaded.  Even  had  it  not  been,  the  people  of 
Rome,  destroyed  by  war  or  as  surely  by  pleasure, 
little  by  little  was  disappearing.  Slaves  could 
not  replace  citizens.  The  affranchised  could  be 
put  in  the  army,  even  in  the  senate,  as  they  were, 
but  that  did  not  change  their  servility,  and  it  was 
precisely  that  servility  which  encouraged  imperial 
aberrations  and  welcomed  those  which  Chris- 
tianity brought. 

The  continence  which  the  Church  inculcated 
was  not  otherwise  new.  The  Persians  had  im- 
posed it  on  girls  consecrated  to  the  worship  of  the 
Sun.     It  was  observed  by  the  priests  of  Osiris. 


FINIS   AMORIS  117 

It  was  the  cardinal  virtue  of  the  Pythagoreans. 
It  was  exacted  of  Hellenic  hierophants.  Gaul 
had  her  druidesses  and  Rome  her  vestals.  Celi- 
bacy existed,  therefore,  before  Christianity  did. 
But  it  was  exceptional  in  addition  to  being  not 
very  rigorously  enforced.  Vesta  was  a  mother. 
All  the  vestals  that  faltered  were  not  buried  alive. 
There  was  gossip,  though  it  be  but  legend,  of  the 
druidesses,  of  the  muses  as  well.  Immaculacy 
was  the  ideal  condition  of  the  ideal  gods.  Zeus 
materially  engendered  material  divinities  that 
presided  over  forces  and  forms.  But,  without 
concurrence,  there  issued  armed  and  adult  from 
his  brain  the  wise  and  immaculate  Pallas. 

Like  her  and  the  muses,  genius  was  assumed  to 
be  ascetic  also.  Socrates  thought  otherwise.  His 
punishment  was  Xantippe,  and  not  a  line  to  his 
credit.  A  married  Homer  is  an  anomaly  which 
imagination  cannot  comfortably  conjure.  A  mar- 
ried Plato  is  another.  Philosophers  and  poets 
generally  were  single.  Lucretius,  Vergil,  and  the 
triumvirs  of  love  were  unmarried.  In  the  epoch 
in  which  they  appeared  Rome  was  aristocrati- 
cally indisposed  to  matrimony.  To  its  pomps 
there  was  a  dislike  so  pronounced  that  Augustus 
introduced  coercive  laws.  Hypocrite  though  he 
were,  he  foresaw  the  dangers  otherwise  resulting. 
It  was  these  that  asceticism  evoked. 

The  better  part  of  the  tenets  of  the  early  Church 


118  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

— sobriety,  stoicism,  the  theory  of  future  reward 
and  punishment,  pagan  philosophy  professed. 
Adherents  could,  therefore,  have  been  readily  re- 
cruited. But  the  doctrine  of  asceticism  and,  with 
it,  the  abnegation  of  whatever  Rome  loved, 
angered,  creating  first  calumny,  then  persecution. 

Infanticide  at  the  time  was  very  common.  To 
accuse  the  Christians  of  it  would  have  meant 
nothing.  They  were  charged  instead  with  eating 
the  children  that  they  killed.  That  being  insuf- 
ficient they  were  further  charged  with  the  united 
abominations  of  OEdipus  and  Thyestes.1 

Thereafter,  if  the  Tiber  mounted  or  the  Nile  did 
not,  if  it  rained  too  heavily  or  not  enough,  were 
there  famine,  earthquakes,  pests,  the  fault  was 
theirs.  Then,  through  the  streets,  a  cry  resounded, 
Christianos  ad  leonem! — to  the  arena  with  them. 
At  any  consular  delay  the  mob  had  its  torches 
and  tortures.  Persecution  augumented  devotion. 
"Fast,"  said  Tertullian.  "Fasting  prepares  for 
martyrdom.  But  do  not  marry,  do  not  bear  chil- 
dren. You  would  only  leave  them  to  the  execu- 
tioner. Garment  yourselves  simply,  the  robes 
the  angels  bring  are  robes  of  death." 

The  robes  did  not  always  come,  the  executioner 

did  not,  either.     The  Kingdom  of  God  delayed. 

The    world    persisted.     So    also    did    asceticism. 

Clement  and  Hermas  unite  in  testifying  that  the 

1  St.  Justin:   Apolog.,  I.,  14,  35. 


FINIS   AMORIS  119 

immaculacy  of  the  single  never  varied  during  an 
epoch  when  even  that  of  the  vestals  did,  and  that 
the  love  of  the  married  was  the  more  tender 
because  of  the  immaterial  relations  observed.1 
Gregoire  de  Tours  cited  subsequently  an  instance 
in  which  a  bride  stipulated  for  a  union  of  this 
kind.  Her  husband  agreed.  Many  years  later 
she  died.  Her  husband,  while  preparing  her  for 
the  grave,  openly  and  solemnly  declared  that  he 
restored  her  to  God  as  immaculate  as  she  came. 
"At  which,"  the  historian  added, "  the  dead  woman 
smiled  and  said,  '  Why  do  you  tell  what  no  one 
asked  you.' " 

The  subtlety  of  the  question  pleased  the  Church. 
The  Church  liked  to  compare  the  Christian  to  an 
athlete  struggling  in  silence  with  the  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil.  It  liked  to  regard  him  as  one 
whose  life  was  a  continual  exercise  in  purification. 
It  liked  to  represent  his  celibacy  as  an  imitation 
of  the  angels.  At  that  period  Christianity  took 
things  literally  and  narrowly.  Paul  had  spoken 
eloquently  on  the  dignity  of  marriage.  He  author- 
ized and  honored  it.  He  permitted  and  even 
counselled  second  marriages.  But  his  pre- 
eminent praise  of  asceticism  was  alone  considered. 

1  Clement:  Strom.,  III.,  6.  Hennas:  Similit.,  IX.,  ii. 
"  Nobiscum  dormi  non  ut  maritus,  sed  ut  f rater."  Hermas: 
Visio,  I.,  2.  "  Conjugi  tuse  quae  futura  est  (incipit  esse) 
soror  tua." 


120  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

Celibacy  became  the  ideal  of  the  early  Christians 
who  necessarily  avoided  the  Forum  and  whatever 
else  was  usual  and  Roman.  It  is  not,  therefore, 
very  surprising  that  they  should  have  been  defined 
as  enemies  of  gods,  emperors,  laws,  customs, 
nature  itself,  or,  more  briefly,  as  barbarians. 

Yet  there  were  others.  At  the  north  and  at  the 
west  they  prowled,  nourished  in  hatred  of  Rome,  in 
wonder,  too,  of  the  effeminate  and  splendid  city 
with  its  litters  of  gold,  its  baths  of  perfume,  its 
inhabitants  dressed  in  gauze,  and  its  sway  from 
the  Indus  to  Britannia.  From  the  day  when  a 
mass  of  them  stumbled  on  Marius  to  the  hour 
when  Alaric  laughed  from  beneath  the  walls  his 
derision  at  imperial  might,  always  they  had  won- 
dered and  hated. 

In  the  slaking  of  the  hate  Christianity  perhaps 
unintentionally  assisted.  The  Master  had  said, 
"All  they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the 
sword."  His  believers  omitted  to  do  either. 
When  enrolled,  they  deserted.  On  the  frontiers 
they  refused  to  fight.  The  path  of  the  barba- 
rians was  easy.  In  disorganized  hordes  they  bat- 
tened on  Rome  and  melted  away  there  in  excesses. 
Tacitus  and  Salvian  rather  flattered  them.  They 
were  neither  intelligent  or  noble.  They  must 
have  lacked  even  the  sense  of  independence. 
They  pulled  civilization  down,  but  they  fell  with 
it — into  serfdom. 


FINIS  AMORIS  121 

Already  from  the  steppes  of  Tartary  had  issued 
cyclones  of  Huns.  Painted  blue,  wrapped  in 
cloaks  of  human  skin,  it  was  thought  that  they 
were  the  whelps  of  demons.  Their  chief  was  At- 
tila.  The  whirlwind  that  he  loosed  swept  the 
world  like  a  broom.  In  the  echoes  of  his  passage 
is  the  crash  of  falling  cities,  the  cries  of  the  van- 
quished, the  death  rattle  of  nations,  the  surge  and 
roar  of  seas  of  blood.  In  the  reverberations  At- 
tila  looms,  dragging  the  desert  after  him,  tossing 
it  like  a  pall  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  "  But  who 
are  you  ?  "  a  startled  prelate  gasped.  Said  Attila, 
"I  am  the  Scourge  of  God." 

Satiated  at  last,  overburdened  with  the  booty  of 
the  world,  he  galloped  back  to  his  lair  where,  on 
his  wedding  couch,  another  Judith  killed  him. 
In  spite  of  him,  in  spite  of  preceding  Goths  and 
subsequent  Vandals,  Rome,  unlike  her  gods  that 
had  fled  the  skies,  was  immortal.  She  could  fall, 
but  she  could  not  die.  But  though  she  survived, 
antiquity  was  dead.  It  departed  with  the  lords 
of  the  ghostland. 


HISTORIA  AMORIS 

Part   Two 


PART  II 
I 

THE   CLOISTER  AND  THE   HEART 

In  the  making  of  the  world  that  was  Rome, 
ages  combined.  Centuries  unrolled  in  its  dis- 
solution. Step  by  step  it  had  ascended  the  path 
of  empire,  step  by  step  it  went  down.  The 
descent  completed,  Rome  herself  survived.  The 
eternal  feminine  is  not  more  everlasting  than  the 
Eternal  City.  Yet,  in  the  descent,  her  power, 
wrested  from  a  people  who  had  but  the  infirmities 
of  corruption,  by  others  that  had  only  the  instincts 
of  brutes,  left  but  vices  and  ruins.  From  these 
feudalism  and  serfdom  erupted.  Humanity  be- 
came divided  into  beasts  of  burden  and  beasts  of 
prey. 

Feudalism  was  the  transmission  of  authority 
from  an  overlord  to  an  underlord,  from  the  latter 
to  a  retainer,  and  thence  down  to  the  lowest  rung 
of  the  social  ladder,  beneath  which  was  the  serf, 
between  whom  and  his  master  the  one  judge 
was  God. 


126  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

The  resulting  conditions  have  no  parallel  in 
any  epoch  of  which  history  has  cognizance. 
Except  in  Byzance,  the  glittering  seat  of  Rome's 
surviving  dominion,  and  in  Islam,  the  glowing 
empire  further  east,  nowhere  was  there  light. 
Europe, pitch-black, became,  almost  in  its  entirety, 
subject  to  the  caprices  of  a  hierarchy  of  despots 
who  managed  to  be  both  stupid  and  fierce,  abso- 
lute autocrats,  practically  kings.  To  the  suzerain 
they  owed  homage  at  court,  assistance  in  war; 
but  in  their  own  baronies,  all  power,  whether 
military,  judiciary,  or  legislative,  centred  in  them. 
They  had  the  further  prerogative,  which  they 
abundantly  abused,  of  maintaining  centuries  of 
anarchy  and  intellectual  night.  The  fief  and  the 
sword  were  the  investiture  of  their  power.  The 
donjon — a  pillory  on  one  side,  a  gibbet  on  the 
other — was  the  symbol  of  their  might.  The  blazon, 
with  its  sanguinary  and  fabulous  beasts,  was 
emblematic  of  themselves.  Could  wolves  form 
a  social  order,  their  model  would  be  that  of  these 
brutes,  to  whom  God  was  but  a  bigger  tyrant. 
Their  personal  interest,  which  alone  prevented 
them  from  exterminating  everybody,  was  the 
determining  cause  of  affranchisement  when  it 
came,  and,  when  it  did,  was  accompanied  by  con- 
ditions always  hard,  often  grotesque,  and  usually 
vile,  among  which  was  the  jus  primce  noctis  and 
the   affiliated    marchetum,    subsequently    termed 


THE   CLOISTER  AND  THE  HEART    127 

droit  du  seigneur,  the  dual  right  of  poaching  on 
maidenly  and  marital  preserves.1 

With  that,  with  drink  and  pillage  for  relaxa- 
tions, the  chief  business  of  the  barons  was  war. 
When  they  descended  from  their  keeps,  it  was  to 
rob  and  attack.  There  was  no  security,  not  a 
road  was  safe,  war  was  an  intermittent  fever  and 
existence  a  panic. 

In  the  constant  assault  and  sack  of  burgs  and 
keeps,  the  condition  of  woman  was  perilous. 
Usually  she  was  shut  away  more  securely  and 
remotely  than  in  the  gynseceum.  If,  to  the 
detriment  of  her  lord,  she  emerged,  she  might 
have  one  of  her  lips  cut  off,  both  perhaps,  or,  more 
expeditiously,  be  murdered.  She  never  knew 
which  beforehand.  It  was  as  it  pleased  him. 
Penalties  of  this  high-handedness  were  not 
sanctioned  by  law.  There  was  none.  It  was 
the  right  of  might.  Civilization  outwearied  had 
lapsed  back  into  eras  in  which  women  were 
things. 

The  lapse  had  ecclesiastical  approbation.  At 
the  second  council  of  Macon  it  was  debated 
whether  woman  should  not  be  regarded  as  beyond 
the  pale  of  humanity  and  as  appertaining  to  a 

1  Boetius,  Lib.  XVII.  Quidam  dominus  quem  vidi, 
primam  sponsarum  carnalem  cognitionem  ut  suam  petebat. 
Du  Cange:  Marchetum.  Marcheto  mulieris  dicitur  virgi- 
nalis  pudieitiae  violatio  et  delibatio. 


128  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

degree  intermediary  between  man  and  beast. 
Subsequent  councils  put  her  outside  of  humanity 
also,  but  on  a  plane  between  angels  and  man. 
But  in  the  capitularies  generally  it  was  as  Vas 
infirmiiis  that  she  was  defined.  Yet  already 
Chrysostom,  with  a  better  appreciation  of  the 
value  of  words,  with  a  better  appreciation  of  the 
value  of  woman  as  well,  had  defined  her  as 
danger  in  its  most  delectable  form.  Chrysostom 
means  golden  mouth.  His  views  are  of  interest. 
Those  of  the  mediaeval  lord  are  not  recorded,  and 
would  not  be  citable,  if  they  were. 

From  manners  such  as  his  and  from  times  such 
as  those,  there  was  but  one  refuge — the  cloister, 
though  there  was  also  the  tomb.  They  were  not 
always  dissimilar.  In  the  monasteries,  there  was 
a  thick  vapor  of  crapulence  and  bad  dreams. 
They  were  vestibules  of  hell.  The  bishops, 
frankly  barbarian,  coarse,  gluttonous,  and  worse, 
went  about  armed,  pillaging  as  freely  as  the  barons. 
Monks  less  adventurous,  but  not  on  that  account 
any  better,  saw  Satan  calling  gayly  at  them, 
"Thou  art  damned."  Yet,  however  drear  their 
life,  it  was  a  surcease  from  the  apoplexy  of  the 
epoch.  Kings  descended  from  their  thrones  to 
join  them.  To  the  abbeys  and  priories  came 
women  of  rank. 

In  these  latter  retreats  there  was  some  suavity, 
but   chiefly   there   was   security   from   predatory 


THE   CLOISTER  AND   THE   HEART    129 

incursions,  from  husbands  quite  as  unwelcome, 
from  the  passions  and  violence  of  the  turbulent 
world  without.  But  the  security  was  not  over- 
secure.  Women  that  escaped  behind  the  bars, 
saw  those  bars  shaken  by  the  men  from  whom 
they  had  fled,  saw  the  bars  sunder,  and  themselves 
torn  away.  That,  though,  was  exceptional.  In 
the  cloister  generally  there  was  safety,  but  there 
were  also  regrets,  and,  with  them,  a  leisure  not 
always  very  adequately  filled.  To  some,  the 
cloister  was  but  another  form  of  captivity  in 
which  they  were  put  not  of  their  own  volition,  but 
by  way  of  precaution,  to  insure  a  security  which 
may  not  have  been  entirely  to  their  wish.  Yet, 
from  whatever  cause  existence  in  these  retreats 
was  induced,  very  rapidly  it  became  the  fashion. 
There  had  been  epochs  in  which  women  wore 
garments  that  were  brief,  there  were  others  in 
which  their  robes  were  long.  It  was  a  question 
of  mode.  Then  haircloth  came  in  fashion.  In 
Greece,  women  were  nominally  free.  In  Rome, 
they  were  unrestrained.  In  Europe  at  this 
period,  they  were  cloistered.  It  was  the  proper 
thing,  a  distinction  that  lifted  them  above  the 
vulgar.  Bertheflede,  a  lady  of  very  exalted 
position,  who,  Gregoire  de  Tours  has  related, 
cared  much  for  the  pleasures  of  the  table  and 
not  at  all  for  the  service  of  God,  entered  a  nunnery 
for  no  other  reason. 


130  HKTORIA  AMORIS 

There  were  other  women  who,  for  other  causes, 
did  likewise.  In  particular,  there  was  Radegonde 
who  founded  a  cloister  of  her  own,  one  that 
within  high  walls  had  the  gardens,  porticoes,  and 
baths  of  a  Roman  villa,  but  which  in  the  deluge 
of  worldly  sin,  was,  Thierry  says,  intended  to  be 
an  ark.  There  Radegonde  received  high  eccle- 
siastics and  laymen  of  position,  among  others 
Fortunatus,  a  poet,  young  and  attractive,  whom 
the  abbess,  young  and  attractive  herself,  welcomed 
so  well  that  he  lingered,  supping  nightly  at  the 
cloister,  composing  songs  in  which  were  strained 
the  honey  of  Catullus,  and,  like  him,  crowned  with 
roses.1 

But  Radegonde  was  not  Lesbia,  and  Fortunatus, 
though  a  poet,  confined  his  licence  to  verse. 
Together  they  collaborated  in  the  first  romance 
of  pure  sentiment  that  history  records,  one  from 
which  the  abbess  passed  to  sanctity,  and  the 
poet  to  fame.  Thereafter  the  story  persisting 
may  have  suggested  some  one  of  the  pedestals 
that  antiquity  never  learned  to  sculpture  and  to 
which  ladies  were  lifted  by  their  knights. 

Meanwhile  love  had  assumed  another  shape. 
Radegonde,  before  becoming  an  abbess,  had 
been  a  queen.  As  a  consequence  she  had  pre- 
rogatives which  other  women  lacked.  It  was 
not  every  one  that  could  entertain  a  tarrying  min- 
1  liecits  des  Temps  Merovingiens. 


THE   CLOISTER  AND   THE   HEART    131 

strel.  It  was  not  every  one  that  would.  The  nun 
generally  was  emancipated  from  man  as  thor- 
oughly at  the  hetaira  had  been  from  marriage. 
But  the  latter  in  renouncing  matrimony  did  not 
for  that  reason  renounce  love  and  there  were 
many  cloistered  girls  who,  in  renouncing  man, 
did  not  renounce  love  either.  One  of  them 
dreamed  that  on  a  journey  to  the  fountain  of 
living  waters,  a  form  appeared  that  pointed  at 
a  brilliant  basin,  to  which,  as  she  stooped,  Rade- 
gonde  approached  and  put  about  her  a  cloak 
that,  she  said,  was  sent  by  the  girl's  betrothed. 

Radegonde  was  then  dead  and  a  saint.  The 
dream  of  her,  particularly  the  gift,  more  espe- 
cially its  provenance,  seemed  so  ineffable  that  the 
girl  could  think  of  nothing  else  save  only  that 
when  at  last  the  betrothed  did  come,  the  nuptial 
chamber  should  be  ready.  She  begged  therefore 
that  there  be  given  her  a  little  narrow  cell,  a  narrow 
little  tomb,  to  which,  the  request  granted,  other 
nuns  led  her.  At  the  threshold  she  kissed  each 
of  them,  then  she  entered;  the  opening  was 
walled  and  within,  with  her  mystic  spouse,  the 
bride  of  Christ  remained.1 

At  Alexandria,  something  similar  had  already 

occurred.      There  another  Hypathia,  fair  as  she, 

refused  Christianity,  refused  also  marriage.    God 

did  not  appeal  to  her,  man  did  not  either.    But 

*Acta  Sanctorum. 


132  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

a  priest  succeeded  in  interesting  her  in  the  possi- 
bility of  obtaining  a  husband  superior  to  every 
mortal  being  on  condition  only  that  she  prayed 
to  Mary.  The  girl  did  pray.  During  the  prayer 
she  fell  asleep.  Then  beautiful  beyond  all  beauty 
the  Lord  appeared  to  whom  the  Virgin  offered 
the  girl.  The  Christ  refused.  She  was  fair  but 
not  fair  enough.  At  that  she  awoke.  Immor- 
tally lovely  and  mortally  sad  she  suffered  the 
priest  to  baptize  her.  Another  prayer  followed 
by  another  sleep  ensued  in  which  she  beheld 
again  the  Christ  who  then  consenting  to  take 
her,  put  on  her  finger  a  ring  which  she  found  on 
awakening. 

The  legend,  which  afterward  inspired  Veronese 
and  Correggio,  had  a  counterpart  in  that  of  St. 
Catherine  of  Sienna.  To  her  also  the  Christ 
gave  a  ring,  yet  one  which,  Delia  Fonte,  her 
biographer,  declared,  was  visible  only  to  herself. 
The  legend  had  also  a  pendant  in  the  story  of 
St.  Theresa,  a  Spanish  mystic,  who  in  her  trances 
discovered  that  the  punishment  of  the  damned  is 
an  inability  to  love.  In  the  Relation  de  su 
vida  the  saint  expressed  herself  as  follows: 

"It  seemed  to  me  as  though  I  could  see  my 
soul,  clearly,  like  a  mirror,  and  that  in  the  centre 
of  it  the  Lord  came.  It  seemed  to  me  that  in 
every  part  of  my  soul  I  saw  him  as  I  saw  him  in 
the  mirror  and  that  mirror,  I  cannot  say  how, 


THE   CLOISTER  AND  THE  HEART    133 

was  wholly  absorbed  by  the  Lord,  indescribably, 
in  a  sort  of  amorous  confusion." 

The  mirror  was  the  imagination,  the  usual 
reflector  of  the  beatific.  It  was  that  perhaps  to 
which  Paul  referred  when  he  said  that  we 
see  through  a  glass  darkly.  But  it  was  certainly 
that  which  enabled  Gcrson  to  catalogue  the 
various  degrees  of  ravishment  of  which  the 
highest,  ecstasy,  culminates  in  union  with  Christ, 
where  the  soul  attaining  perfection  is  freed. 

Gerson  came  later  but  theories  similar  to  his, 
which  neoplatonism  had  advanced,  were  common. 
In  that  day  or  more  exactly  in  that  night,  the 
silver  petals  of  the  lily  of  purity  were  plucked  so 
continuously  by  so  many  hands,  so  many  were 
the  eyes  strained  on  the  mirror,  so  frequent  were 
the  brides  of  Christ,  that  the  aberration  became 
as  disquieting  as  asceticism.  Then  through 
fear  that  woman  might  lose  herself  in  dreams 
of  spiritual  love  and  evaporate  completely,  an 
effort  was  attempted  which  succeeded  presently 
in  deflecting  her  aspirations  to  the  Virgin  who, 
hitherto,  had  remained  strictly  within  the  limits 
originally  traced.  Commiserate  to  the  erring 
she  was  Regina  angelorum,  the  angel  queen. 
In  the  twelfth  century  suddenly  she  mounted. 
From  queen  she  became  sovereign.  Ceremonies, 
churches,  cathedrals,  were  consecrated  uniquely 
to  her.     In  pomp  and  importance  her  worship 


134  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

exceeded  that  of  God.  When  Satan  had  the 
sinner  in  his  grasp,  it  was  she  who  in  the  prodi- 
galities of  her  divine  compassion  rescued  and 
redeemed  him.1 

In  the  art  of  the  period,  such  as  it  was,  the 
worship  was  reflected.  The  thin  hands  of  saints, 
the  poignant  eyes  of  sinners,  were  raised  to  her 
equally.  The  fainting  figures  that  were  painted 
in  the  ex-voto  of  the  triptiques  seemed  ill  with 
love.  The  forms  of  women,  lost  beneath  the 
draperies,  disclosed,  if  anything,  emaciation. 
The  expression  of  the  face  alone  indicated  what 
they  represented  and  that  always  was  adoration. 
They  too  were  swooning  at  the  Virgin's  feet. 

Previously  Paul  had  been  studied.  It  was 
seen  that  a  thorn  had  been  given  him,  a  messenger 
of  Satan,  from  which,  three  times  he  had  prayed 
release.  But  the  Lord  said  to  him:  "My  grace 
is  sufficient  to  thee,  for  my  strength  is  made 
perfect  in  weakness."  ''  Wherefore,"  said  Paul, 
"  most  gladly  will  I  glory  in  my  infirmities.2 

Precisely  what  the  apostle  meant  is  immaterial. 
But  from  his  words  the  inference  was  drawn  that 
in  weakness  is  salvation  and  in  sin  the  glory  of 
God. 

The  early  Church  had  not  interpreted  the 
evangels  with  entire  correctness.     It  is  possible 

1  Michelet:    Histoire  de  France. 

2  1  Corinthians  xii.  7-9. 


THE   CLOISTER  AND   THE   HEART    135 

that  in  the  Graeco-Syrian  dialect  which  the 
apostles  employed,  their  meaning  was  sometimes 
obscure.  It  is  presumable  for  instance  that  the 
coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  which  they 
proclaimed  was  not  the  material  termination  of 
a  material  world  but  the  real  Kingdom  which 
did  really  come  in  the  hearts  of  those  that  believed. 
"Comprends,  pecheur,"  Bossuet  thundered  at 
a  later  day,  "que  tu  portes  ton  paradis  et  ton 
enfer  en  toi-meme."  The  patricists  were  not 
Bossuets.  They  were  literal  folk.  They  stuck 
to  the  letter.  Having  discovered  what  they 
regarded  as  a  divine  command  for  abstinence, 
asceticism  in  all  its  rigors  ensued.  Subsequent 
exegetes  finding  in  Paul  a  few  words  not  over 
precise,  discovered  in  them  a  commendation  of 
sin  as  a  means  of  grace.  The  discovery,  ampli- 
fied later  by  Molinos,  had  results  that  made  man 
even  less  attractive  than  he  had  been. 

Meanwhile,  between  insanity  and  disorder, 
woman,  indifferent  as  always  to  texts,  had  found 
a  form  of  love  which,  however  impossible,  was 
one  that  in  its  innocence  obscured  the  stupidities 
and  turpitudes  of  the  day.  Then,  after  the 
substitution  of  the  Rosa  mystica  for  the  mystic 
lily,  tentatively  there  began  an  affranchisement 
of  communes,  of  women  and  of  thought. 

Hitherto  it  had  been  blasphemy  to  think.  The 
first  human  voice  that  the  Middle  Ages   heard, 


136  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

the  first  voice  distinguishable  from  that  of  kings, 
of  felons  and  of  beasts,  was  Abailard's.  Whatever 
previously  had  been  said  was  bellowed  or  stuttered. 
It  was  with  the  forgotten  elegance  of  Athens  that 
Abailard  spoke,  preaching  as  he  did  so  the  indul- 
gence of  God,  the  rehabilitation  of  the  flesh,  the 
inferiority  of  fear,  love's  superiority. 

Abailard,  fascinating  and  gifted,  was  familiar 
with  Greek  and  Hebrew,  attainments  then 
prodigious  to  which  he  added  other  abilities, 
the  art  of  calming  men  while  disturbing  women 
— among  others  a  young  Parisian,  Heloise,  herself 
a  miracle  of  erudition  and  of  beauty. 

Abailard  at  the  time  was  nearly  thirty-eight, 
Heloise  not  quite  eighteen.  Between  them  a 
liaison  ensued  that  resulted  in  a  secret  marriage 
which  Abailard  afterward  disavowed  and  which, 
for  his  sake,  Heloise  denied.  It  ruined  their 
lives  and  founded  their  fame.  Had  it  been  less 
catastrophic  no  word  or  memory  of  them  could 
have  endured.  Misfortune  made  immortal  these 
lovers,  one  of  whom  took  the  veil  and  the  other 
the  cowl  and  whose  story  has  survived  that  of 
kingdoms. 

In  separation  they  corresponded.  The  letters 
of  Heloise  are  vibrant  still.  Only  Sappho,  in 
her  lost  songs  to  Phaon,  could  have  exceeded 
their  fervor.  "God  knows,"  she  wrote,  "in  you 
I  sought  but  you,  nothing  but  you.     You  were 


THE   CLOISTER  AND   THE   HEART    137 

my  one  and  only  object,  marriage  I  did  not  seek, 
nor  my  way  but  yours  uniquely.  If  the  title  of 
wife  be  holy,  I  thought  the  name  of  mistress  more 
dear.  Rather  would  I  have  been  called  that  by 
you  than  empress  by  an  emperor." 

Abailard's  frigid  and  methodical  answers  were 
headed  "To  the  bride  of  Christ,"  or  else  "To 
my  sister  in  Christ,  from  Abailard,  her  brother." 
The  tone  of  Heloi'se's  replies  was  very  different. 
"To  my  master,  no;  to  my  brother,  no;  to  my 
husband,  no;  his  sister,  his  bride,  no;  from 
Heloise  to  Abailard."  Again  she  wrote:  "At 
every  angle  of  life  God  knows  I  fear  to  offend 
you  more  than  Him,  I  desire  to  please  Him  less 
than  I  do  you.  It  was  your  will  not  His  that 
brought  me  where  I  am." 

It  was  true.  She  took  the  veil  as  though  it 
were  poison.  She  broke  into  the  priory  violently 
as  the  despairful  plunge  into  death.  Even 
that  could  not  assuage  her.  But  in  the  burning 
words  which  she  tore  from  her  breaking  heart 
the  true  passion  of  love,  which  nothing  earthly 
or  divine  can  still,  for  the  first  time  pulsated. 


II 

THE   PURSUIVANTS   OF  LOVE 

There  is  no  immaculate  history.  If  there  were 
it  would  relate  to  a  better  world.  Unable  to  be 
immaculate,  history  usually  is  stupid,  more  often 
false.  Concerning  the  Middle  Ages  it  has  con- 
trived to  be  absurd.  It  attributed  the  recovery  of 
light  to  the  Tiers  etat.  Darkness  was  dispersed 
by  love,  whose  gereralissimi  were  the  troubadour 
and  the  knight.  Concerning  the  latter  history 
erred  again.  Tacitus  aiding,  it  derived  chivalry 
from  Germany.  Chivalry  originated  in  the  courts 
of  the  emirs.  The  knight  and  the  troubadour 
came  from  Islam.  Together  they  resummoned 
civilization. 

The  world  at  the  time  was  divided.  Long  since 
Europe  and  Asia  had  gone  their  separate  ways. 
When  at  last  they  caught  sight  of  each  other,  the 
Church  sickened  with  horror.  There  ensued  the 
Crusades  in  which  the  Papacy  pitted  Christianity 
against  Muhammadanism  and  staked  the  authen- 
ticity of  each  in  the  result.  The  result  was  that 
Muhammadanism  proved  its  claim.  On  the  way 
to  it  was  Byzance. 


THE   PURSUIVANTS   OF   LOVE    139 

Beside  the  bleak  burgs,  squalid  ignorance  and 
abysmal  barbarism  of  Europe,  Byzance  isolated 
and  fastidious,  luxurious  and  aloof,  learned  and 
subtle,  Roman  in  body  but  Greek  in  soul,  con- 
trasted almost  supernatu rally.  Set  apart  from 
and  beyond  the  mediaeval  night,  her  marble  basil- 
icas, her  golden  domes,  her  pineapple  cupolas 
covered  with  colors,  her  ceaseless  and  gorgeous 
ceremonial,  gave  her  the  mysterious  beauty  of  a 
city  shimmering  on  uplands  of  dream.  It  was  a 
dream,  the  final  flower  of  Hellenic  art.  The  peo- 
ple, delicately  nurtured  on  delicate  fare,  exqui- 
sitely dressed  in  painted  clothes,  rather  tigerish  at 
heart  but  exceedingly  punctilious,  equally  con- 
temptuous and  very  well  bred,  must  have  con- 
trasted too  with  the  Crusaders. 

Contiguous  was  Persia  which,  taken  by  Muham- 
mad, had,  with  but  the  magic  wand  of  her  own 
beauty,  transformed  his  trampling  hordes  into  a 
superb  and  romantic  nation,  fanatic  indeed,  quick 
with  the  scimitar,  born  fighters  who  had  passed 
thence  into  Egypt,  Andalusia,  Syria,  Assyria  and 
beyond  to  the  Indus.  The  diverse  lands  they  had 
subjugated  and  united  into  one  vast  empire.  Bagh- 
dad was  their  caliphate. 

Before  the  latter  and  on  through  the  Orient 
were  strewn  in  profusion  the  marvellous  cities  of 
the  Thousand  and  One  Nights,  the  enameled 
houses  of  the  Thousand  and  One  Days.     There, 


140  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

in  courtyards  curtained  with  cashmeres,  chimeras 
and  hippogriffs  crouched.  The  turbans  of  the 
merchants  that  passed  were  heavy  with  sequins 
and  secrets.  The  pale  mouths  of  the  blue-bellied 
fish  that  rose  from  the  sleeping  waters  were  aglow 
with  gems.  In  the  air  was  the  odor  of  spices,  the 
scent  of  the  wines  of  Shiraz.  Occasionally  was 
the  spectacle  of  a  faithless  favorite  sewn  in  a  sack 
and  tossed  by  hurrying  eunuchs  into  the  indiffer- 
ent sea. 

The  sight  was  rare.  The  charm  of  Scheherazade 
and  Chain-of-Hearts  prevailed.  The  Muslim 
might  dissever  heads  as  carelessly  as  he  plucked 
an  orange,  they  were  those  of  unbelievers,  not  of 
girls.  Among  the  peris  of  his  earthly  paradise 
he  was  passionate  and  gallant.  It  is  generally  in 
this  aspect  that  he  appears  in  the  Thousand  and 
One  Nights,  which,  like  the  Thousand  and  One 
Days,  originally  Persian  in  design,  had  been  done 
over  into  arabesques  that,  while  intertwisting 
fable  and  fact,  none  the  less  displayed  the  manners 
of  a  nation.  Some  of  the  stories  are  as  knightly 
as  romaunts,  others  as  delicate  as  lays;  all  were 
the  unconsidered  trifles  of  a  people  who,  when 
the  Saxons  were  living  in  huts,  had  developed  the 
most  poetic  civilization  the  world  has  known,  a 
social  order  which,  with  religion  and  might  for 
basis,  had  a  superstructure  of  art  and  of  love. 

It  was  this  that  louts  in  rusty  mail  went  forth 


THE   PURSUIVANTS   OF  LOVE     141 

to  destroy.  But  though  they  could  not  conquer 
Islam,  the  chivalry  of  the  Muslim  taught  them 
how  to  conquer  themselves.  From  the  victory 
contemporaneous  civilization  proceeds. 

With  the  louts  were  women.  An  army  of  Am- 
azons set  out  for  the  Cross  where  they  found 
liberty,  new  horizons,  larger  life,  and,  in  contact 
with  the  most  gallant  race  on  earth,  found  also 
theories  of  love  unimagined.  In  the  second  cru- 
sade Eleanor,  then  Queen  of  France,  afterward 
Queen  of  England,  alternated  between  clashes 
and  amours  with  emirs.  The  example  of  a  lady 
so  exalted  set  a  fashion  which  would  have  been 
adopted  any  way,  so  irresistible  were  the  Saracens.1 

It  was  therefore  first  in  Byzance  and  then  in 
Islam  that  the  Normans  and  Anglo-Normans  who 
in  the  initial  crusade  went  forth  to  fight  went  liter- 
ally to  school.  They  had  gone  on  to  sweep  from 
existence  inept  bands  of  pecculant  bedouins  and 
discovered  that  the  ineptity  was  wholly  their  own. 
They  had  thought  that  there  might  be  a  few  pretty 
women  in  the  way,  only  to  find  their  own  women 
falling  in  love  with  the  foe.  They  had  thought 
Tours  and  Poictiers  were  to  be  repeated. 

It  was  in  those  battles  that  Europe  first  encoun- 
tered Islam.  Had  not  the  defeat  of  the  latter  re- 
sulted, the  world  might  have  become  Muham- 
madan,  or,  as  Gibbon  declared,  Oxford  might  to- 
1  Michaud:  Histoire  des  Croisades. 


142  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

day  be  expounding  the  Koran.  But  though  the 
Moors,  who  otherwise  would  have  been  masters 
of  Europe,  retreated,  it  is  possible  that  they  left 
a  manual  of  chivalry  behind.  Even  had  the  at- 
tention been  overlooked,  already  from  Andalusia 
the  code  was  filtering  up  through  Provence.  De- 
vised by  a  people  who  of  all  others  have  been  most 
chivalrous  in  their  worship  of  women  it  surprised 
and  then  appealed.  Adopted  by  the  Church,  it 
became  the  sacrament  of  the  preux  chevalier  who 
swore  that  everywhere  and  always  he  would  be 
the  champion  of  women,  of  justice  and  of  right. 

The  oath  was  taken  at  an  hour  when  justice 
was  not  even  in  the  dictionaries — there  were  none 
— at  an  epoch  when  every  man  who  was  not  ma- 
rauding was  maimed  or  a  monk.  At  that  hour, 
the  blackest  of  all,  there  was  proposed  to  the  crap- 
ulous barons  an  ideal.  Thereafter,  little  by  little, 
in  lieu  of  the  boor  came  the  knight,  occasionally 
the  paladin  of  whom  Roland  was  the  type. 

Roland,  a  legend  says,  died  of  love  before  a 
cloister  of  nuns.  Roland  himself  was  legendary. 
But  in  the  Chanson  de  Roland  which  is  the  right 
legend,  he  died  embracing  his  sole  mistress,  his 
sword.  Afterward  a  girl  asked  concerning  him 
of  Charlemagne,  saying  that  she  was  to  be  his 
wife.  The  emperor,  after  telling  of  his  death, 
offered  the  girl  his  son.  The  girl  refused.  She 
declined  even  to  survive.     In  the  story  of  Roland 


THE   PURSUIVANTS   OF   LOVE     143 

that  is  the  one  occasion  in  which  love  appeared. 
It  but  came  and  vanished  with  a  hero  whose  name 
history  has  mentioned  but  once  and  then  only  in 
a  monkish  screed,1  yet  whose  prowess  romance 
ceaselessly  celebrated,  inverting  chronology  in  his 
behalf,  enlarging  for  his  grandiose  figure  the 
limits  of  time  and  space,  lifting  his  epic  memories 
to  the  skies. 

What  Jason  had  been  in  mythology,  Roland 
became  in  legend,  the  first  Occidental  custodian 
of  chivalry's  golden  fleece,  which,  he  gone,  was 
found  reducible  to  just  four  words — Death  rather 
than  dishonor. 

Dishonor  meant  to  be  last  in  the  field  and  first 
in  the  retreat.  Honor  meant  courage  and  cour- 
tesy, the  reverencing  of  all  women  for  the  love  of 
one.  It  meant  bravery  and  good  manners.  It 
meant  something  else.  To  be  first  in  the  field 
and  last  in  the  retreat  was  necessary  not  merely 
for  valor's  sake,  but  because  courage  was  the 
surest  token  to  a  lady's  favor,  which  favor  fidelity 
could  alone  retain.  Hitherto  men  had  been  bold, 
chivalry  made  them  true.  It  made  them  con- 
stant for  constancy's  sake,  because  inconstancy 
meant  forfeiture  of  honor  and  any  forfeiture  deg- 
radation. 

When  that  occurred  the  spurs  of  the  knight 
were  hacked  from  his  heels,  a  ceremony  over- 
1  Eginhard:  Vita  Karoli,  IX. 


144  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

whelming  in  the  simplicity  with  which  it  pro- 
claimed him  unfit  to  ride  and  therefore  for  chivalry. 

Yet  though  a  man  might  not  be  false  to  any  one, 
to  some  one  he  must  be  true.  If  he  knew  how  to 
break  a  lance  but  not  how  to  win  a  lady  he  was 
less  a  knight  than  a  churl.  "A  knight,"  said  Sir 
Tristram,  "  can  never  be  of  prowess  unless  he  be 
a  lover."  'Why,"  said  the  belle  Isaud  to  Sir 
Dinadan,  "are  you  a  knight  and  not  a  lover? 
You  cannot  be  a  goodly  knight  except  you  are  ?  " 
"  Jesu  merci,"  Sir  Dinadan  replied.  "  Pleasure 
of  love  lasts  but  a  moment,  pain  of  love  endures 
alway. " 

Sir  Dinadan  was  right,  but  so  was  Sir  Tristram, 
so  was  the  belle  Isaud.  A  knight  had  to  be  brave, 
he  had  to  be  loyal  and  courteous  in  war,  as  in 
peace.  But  he  had  to  be  also  a  lover  and  as  a 
lover  he  had  to  be  true. 

"L'ordre  demande  nette  vie 
Chastete  et  curtesye." 

The  demand  was  new  to  the  world.  Inter- 
twisting with  the  silver  thread  which  chivalry  drew 
in  and  in  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  it  be- 
came the  basis  of  whatever  is  noble  in  love  to-day. 
The  sheen  of  that  thread,  otherwise  dazzling, 
shines  still  in  Froissart  and  in  Monstrelet,  as  it 
must  have  shone  in  the  tournaments,  where,  in 
glittering  mail,  men  dashed  in  the  lists  while  the 


THE   PURSUIVANTS   OF   LOVE     145 

air  was  rent  with  women's  names  and,  at  each 
achievement,  the  heralds  shouted  "  Loyaute  aux 
Dames,"  who,  in  their  tapestried  galleries,  were 
judges  of  the  jousts. 

Dazzling  there  it  must  have  been  entrancing  in 
the  halls  and  courts  of  the  great  keeps  where 
knights  and  ladies,  pages  and  girls,  going  up  and 
down,  talked  but  of  arms  and  amours,  or  at  table 
sat  together,  two  by  two,  in  hundreds,  with  one 
trencher  to  each  couple,  feasting  to  the  high  flour- 
ishes of  trumpets  and  later  knelt  while  she  who 
for  the  occasion  had  been  chosen  Royne  de  la 
Beaulte  et  des  Amours,  awarded  the  prizes  of  the 
tourney,  falcons,  girdles  or  girls. 

Life  then  was  sufficiently  stirring.  But  the 
feudal  system  was  not  devised  for  the  purposes  of 
love,  and  matrimony,  while  not  inherently  preju- 
dicial to  them,  omitted,  as  an  institution,  to  con- 
sider love  at  all.  Love  was  not  regarded  as  com- 
patible with  marriage  and  a  lady  married  to  one 
man  was  openly  adored  by  another,  whom  she 
honored  at  least  with  her  colors,  which  he  wore 
quite  as  openly  in  war  and  in  war's  splendid  image 
which  the  tournament  was. 

In  circumstances  such  as  these  and  in  spite  of 
ideals  and  injunctions,  it  becomes  obvious  if  only 
from  the  Chansons  de  geste,  which  are  replete 
with   lovers'    inconstancies,  that   the    hacking  of 

spurs  could  not  have  continued  except  at  the  ex- 

10 


146  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

pense  of  the  entire  caste.  The  ceremony  was  one 
that  hardly  survived  the  early  investitures  of  the 
men-at-arms  of  God.  It  was  too  significant  in 
beauty. 

The  fault  lay  not  with  chivalry  but  with  the 
thousand-floored  prison  that  feudalism  was.  In 
it  a  lady's  affections  were  administered  for  her. 
Marriage  she  might  not  conclude  as  she  liked. 
If  she  were  an  heiress  it  was  arranged  not  in  ac- 
cordance with  her  choice  but  her  suzerain's  wishes 
and  in  no  circumstances  could  it  be  contracted 
without  his  consent.  Under  the  feudal  system 
land  was  held  subject  to  military  service  and  in 
the  event  of  the  passing  of  a  fief  to  a  girl,  the  over- 
lord, whose  chief  concern  was  the  number  of  his 
retainers,  could  not,  should  war  occur,  look  to  her 
for  aid.  The  result  being  that  whatever  vassal 
he  thought  could  serve  him  best,  he  promptly 
gratified  with  the  land  and  the  lady,  who  of  the 
two  counted  least.1 

The  proceeding,  if  summary,  was  not  neces- 
sarily disagreeable.  Girls  whose  accomplish- 
ments were  limited  to  the  singing  of  a  lai  or  the 
longer  romaunt  and  who  perhaps  could  also  strum 
a  harp,  were  less  fastidious  than  they  have  since 
become.  Advanced  they  may  have  been  in  man- 
ners but  in  delicacy  they  were  not.  Their  con- 
versation as  reported  in  the  fabliaux  and  novelle 
1  Summa  Hostiensis,  IV.     De  Sponsalibus. 


THE   PURSUIVANTS   OF   LOVE     147 

was  disquietingly  frank.  When,  as  occasionally 
occurred,  the  overlord  omitted  to  provide  a  hus- 
band, not  infrequently  they  demanded  that  he 
should.  As  with  girls,  so  with  widows.  Usually 
they  were  remarried  at  once  to  men  who  had  lost 
the  right  to  kill  them  but  who  might  beat  them 
reasonably  in  accordance  with  the  law.1 

The  law  was  that  of  the  Church  who,  in  author- 
izing a  reasonable  beating,  may  have  had  in  view 
the  lady's  age,  which  sometimes  was  tender. 
Legally  a  girl  could  not  be  married  until  she  was 
twelve.  But  feudalism  had  evasions  which  the 
Church  could  not  always  prevent.  Sovereign 
though  she  were  over  villeins  and  vassals  and 
suzerains  as  well,  yet  the  high  lords,  sovereign  too, 
married  when  and  whom  they  liked,  children  if 
it  suited  them  and  there  was  a  fief  to  be  obtained. 

They  married  the  more  frequently  in  that  mar- 
riage was  easily  annulled.  Even  the  primitive 
Church  permitted  divorce.  "Fabiola,"  said  a 
saint,  "divorced  her  husband  because  he  was 
vicious  and  married  again."  2  In  the  later  Church 
matrimony  was  prohibited  within  the  seventh 
degree  of  consanguinity  in  which  the  nominal  re- 
lationship of  godfather  and  godmother  counted 
equally  with  ties  of  blood  and  created  artificial 


i 


Beaumanoir,  LVII.     "  Tout  mari  peut  battre  sa  femme, 
pourvu  que  ce  soit  moderement  et  sans  que  mort  s'ensuivre." 
2  St.  Jerome:   Vita  S.  Fabiolae. 


148  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

sets  of  brothers,  sisters,  cousins  and  remoter  rela- 
tives, all  of  whom  stood  within  the  prohibited 
degrees.  Relationship  of  some  kind  it  was  there- 
fore possible  to  discover  and  also  to  invent,  or, 
that  failing,  there  was  yet  another  way.  A  con- 
dition precedent  to  matrimony  was  the  consent, 
actual  or  assumed,  of  the  contracting  parties. 
But  as  in  the  upper  classes  it  was  customary  to 
betroth  children  still  in  the  cradle,  absence  of 
consent  could  readily  be  alleged.  As  a  conse- 
quence any  husband  that  wished  to  be  off  with 
the  old  wife  in  order  to  be  on  with  the  new,  might, 
failing  relationship  on  his  part,  advance  absence 
of  consent  on  hers,  the  result  being  that  the  chival- 
ric  injunction  to  honor  all  women  for  the  love  of 
one,  continued  to  be  observed  since  one  was  so 
easily  multiplied.1 

Thereafter  began  the  subsidence  of  the  order 
which  at  the  time  represented  what  heroism  had 
in  the  past,  with  the  difference,  however,  that 
chivalry  lifted  sentiment  to  heights  which  an- 
tiquity never  attained.  The  heights  were  per- 
haps themselves  too  high.  On  them  was  the 
exaltation  of  whatever  is  lofty — honor,  courage, 
courtesy  and  love.  It  was  the  exaltation  of  love 
that  made  Don  Quixote  station  himself  in  the 
high  road  and  prevent  the  merchants  from  pass- 
ing until  they  acknowledged  that  in  all  the  universe 
1  Juris  Pontificii  Analecta. 


THE   PURSUIVANTS   OF   LOVE     149 

there  was  no  one  so  beautiful  as  the  peerless  Dul- 
cinea  del  Toboso.  But  it  was  the  exaltation  of 
humor  that  made  him  answer  a  natural  inquiry 
of  the  merchants  in  regard  to  the  lady  by  exclaim- 
ing: "Had  I  shown  her  to  you  what  wonder 
would  it  be  to  acknowledge  so  notorious  a  truth  ? 
The  importance  of  the  thing  lies  in  compelling 
you  to  believe  it,  confess  it,  swear  it,  and  maintain 
it  without  seeing  her  at  all." 

Exaltation  lifted  to  a  pitch  so  high  could  but 
squeak.  The  world  laughed.  Chivalry  out- 
faced by  ridicule  succumbed.  It  had  become  but 
a  great  piece  of  empty  armor  that  needed  but  a 
shove  to  topple.  In  the  levelling  democracy  of 
fire-arms  it  fell,  pierced  by  the  first  bullet,  yet  sur- 
viving itself  in  the  elements  of  which  the  gentle- 
man is  made  and  in  whatever  in  love  is  noble. 


Ill 

THE   PARLIAMENTS   OF  JOY 

The  decalogue  of  the  Zend-Avesta  mentions 
many  strange  sins.  The  strangest  among  them 
is  sorrow.  The  Persian  abhorred  it.  His  Mu- 
hammadan  victor,  who  had  learned  from  him 
much,  learned  also  its  avoidance.  If  it  ever 
perturbed  the  Moors,  by  the  time  Andalusia  was 
theirs  it  had  vanished.  Joy  was  a  creed  with 
them.  Their  poets  made  it  the  cardinal  virtue. 
The  Aragonese  and  Provencals,  whom  they 
indoctrinated,  made  it  the  basis  of  the  gaya  cienca 
— the  gay  science  of  love,  and  chivalry  the  parure 
of  the  knight. 

Before  chivalry  departed  and  very  shortly 
after  it  appeared,  that  joy,  lifted  into  joie  d'amour, 
glowed  like  a  rose  in  the  gloom  of  the  world. 
It  humanized  very  notably.  It  dismissed  much 
that  was  dark.  It  brought  graces  hitherto  un- 
known. It  inspired  loyalty,  fealty  and  parage 
— the  nobility  of  noble  pride — but  particularly 
the  worship  of  woman. 

In  the  East,  woman  had  also  been  worshipped. 
But  not  as  she  was  in   Europe  at  this  period. 


THE  PARLIAMENTS   OF   JOY      151 

At  no  epoch  since  has  she  been  as  sovereign. 
Set  figuratively  with  the  high  virtues  in  high 
figurative  spheres,  she  ruled  on  earth  only  less 
fully  than  she  reigned  in  heaven.  The  cultus, 
instituted  first  by  the  troubadours,  then  adopted 
by  royals,  connected  consequently  with  pride  of 
place,  became  fashionable  among  an  aristocracy 
for  whose  convenience  the  rest  of  humanity 
labored.  Too  elevating  for  the  materialism  of 
the  age  that  had  gone  and  too  elevated  for  the 
democracy  of  the  age  that  followed,  it  was  com- 
parable to  a  precipitate  of  the  chemistry  of  the 
soul  projected  into  the  heart  of  a  life  splendid 
and  impermanent,  a  form  of  existence  impossible 
before,  impossible  since,  a  social  order  very 
valiant,  very  courteous,  to  which  the  sense  of 
rectitude  had  not  come  but  in  which  joy,  unparal- 
leled in  history,  really,  if  unequally,  abounded. 
Never  more  obvious,  never  either  was  it  more 
obscure.  It  was  abstruse.  It  had  its  laws, 
its  jurists,  its  tribunals  and  its  code. 

Chivalry  required  of  the  novice  various  proofs 
and  preliminaries  before  admitting  him  to 
knighthood.  The  gay  science  had  also  its  re- 
quirements, preparatory  tests  which  young  men 
of  quality  gave  and  primary  instruction  which 
they  received,  before  their  novitiate  could  termi- 
nate. The  tests  related  to  women  married  and 
single.     By  address  in  the  lists,  by  valor  in  war. 


152  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

by  constant  courtesy  and  loyalty,  it  was  the  duty 
of  the  aspirant  to  please  them.  Pending  the 
novitiate  no  word  of  love  was  permitted  and  any 
advancement  might  be  lost  through  an  awk- 
wardness of  speech  or  gesture.  But  the  caprices 
of  a  lady  properly  endured  and  the  tests  undergone 
unfalteringly,  relations  might  ensue,  in  which 
case,  if  the  lady  were  single,  the  connection  was 
not  thought  contrary  to  the  best  traditions,  pro- 
vided that  it  was  a  prelude  to  marriage,  nor,  if 
the  lady  were  already  married  was  it  thought  at 
variance  with  those  traditions,  provided  that 
the  articles  of  the  code  were  observed.1 

Concerning  the  origin  of  the  code  history 
stammers.  The  chief  authority,  Maitre  Andre, 
said  that  in  Broceliande — a  locality  within  the 
confines  of  the  Arthurian  myth — a  vavasour — 
quidam  miles — met  a  lass — formosa  puella — 
who  agreed  to  accept  his  attentions  on  condition 
that  he  outjousted  the  Knights  of  the  Round 
Table  and  got  a  falcon  from  them  for  her.  These 
labors  accomplished  and  the  vavasour  rewarded 
— plenius  suo  remuneravit  amore — there  was 
found  attached  to  the  falcon's  claw,  a  scroll, 
a  holy  writ,  a  code  of  love,  a  corpus  juris  amoris.2 

The    story    is    as    imaginary    as    Broceliande. 

1  Ste.  Palaye:  L'ancienne  Chevalerie. 

2  Maitre  Andre,  chapelain  de  la  cour  royale  de  France. 
Manuscrit  de  la  Bibliotheque  nationale,  No.  8758. 


THE   PARLIAMENTS   OF   JOY      153 

The  code  was  probably  derived  from  some 
critique  of  pure  courtesy  then  common  in  manuals 
of  chivalry.  But  its  source  is  unimportant. 
Gradually  promulgated  throughout  Christendom 
it  resulted  in  making  love  the  subject  of  law  for 
the  administration  of  which  courts  open  and 
plenary  were  founded.  These  courts  which 
were  at  once  academies  of  fine  sentiments  and 
parliaments  of  joy,  existed,  Maitre  Andre  stated, 
before  Salahaddin  decapitated  a  Christian  and 
lasted,  Nostradamus  declared,  until  post-Petrar- 
chian  days.1 

The  code  is  as  follows: 

I.  Causa  conjugii  ab  amore  non  est  excusatio  recta. 

II.  Qui  non  celat  amare  non  potest. 

III.  Nemo  duplici  potest  amore  ligari. 

IV.  Semper  amorem  minui  vel  crescere  constat. 

V.  Non  est  sapidum  quod  amans  ab  invito  sumit  amante. 

VI.  Masculus  non  solet  nisi  in  plena  pubertate  amare. 

VII.  Biennalis  viduitas  pro  amante  defuncto  superstiti 
prsescribitur  amanti. 

VIII.  Nemo,  sine  rationis  excessu,  suo  debet  amore  privari. 

IX.  Amare  nemo  potest,  nisi  qui  amoris  suasione  com- 
pellitur. 

X.  Amor  semper  ab  avaritia  consuevit  domiciliis  exulare. 

XI.  Non  decet  amare  quarum  pudor  est  nuptias  affectare. 

1  "  Des  personnages  de  grands  renoms  estantvenus  visiter 
le  pape  Innocent  III  a  Avignon,  furent  ouir  les  definitions 
et  sentences  d' amour  prononcees  par  les  dames." — Nostra- 
damus. 


154  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

XII.  Verus  amans  alterius  nisi  suae  coamantis  ex  affectu 
non  cupit  amplexus. 

XIII.  Amor  raro  consuevit  durare  vulgatus. 

XIV.  Facilis   perceptio   contemptibilem   reddit   amorem, 
difficilis  eum  parum  facit  haberi. 

XV.  Omnis  consuevit  amans  in  coamantis  as  pectupalles- 
cere. 

XVI.  In  repentina  coamantis  visione,  cor  tremescit  amantis. 

XVII.  Novus  amor  veterem  compellit  abire. 

XVIII.  Probitas  sola  quemcumque  dignum  facit  amore. 

XIX.  Si  amor  minuatur,  cito  deficit  et  raro  convalescit. 

XX.  Amorosus  semper  est  timorosus. 

XXI.  Ex  vera  zelotypia  affectus  semper  crescit  amandi. 

XXII.  De  coamante  suspicione  percepta  zelus  interea  et 
affectus  crescit  amandi. 

XXIII.  Minus  dormit  et  edit  quern  amoris  cogitatio  vexat 

XXIV.  Quilibet  amantis  actus  in  coamantis  cogitatione 
finitur. 

XXV.  Verus  amans  nihil  beatum  credit,  nisi  quod  cogitat 
amanti  placere. 

XXVI.  Amor  nihil  posset  amori  denegare. 

XXVII.  Amans  coamantis  solatiis  satiari  non  potest. 

XXVIII.  Modica  prsesumptio  cogit  amantem  de  coamante 
fuspicari  sinistra. 

XXIX.  Non  solet  amare  quern   nimia  voluptatis  abun- 
dantia  vexat. 

XXX.  Verus  amans  assidua,  sine  intermissione,  coamantis 
imagine  detinetur. 

XXXI.  Unam  feminam  nihil  prohibet  a  duobus  amari. 
et  a  duabus  mulieribus  unum. 


THE   PARLIAMENTS   OF   JOY     155 

Of  these  articles,  the  translation  of  a  few  may 
suffice. 

The  allegation  of  marriage  is  an  insufficient  plea  against 
love. 

No  one  should  love  two  people  at  the  same  time. 

Without  exceeding  good  reason  no  one  should  be  for- 
bidden to  love. 

No  one  need  love  unless  persuasion  invite. 

It  is  not  seemly  to  love  one  whom  it  would  be  unseemly 
to  marry. 

A  new  love  banishes  an  old  one. 

Love  readily  yielded  is  lightly  held. 

The  establishment  of  courts  for  the  maintenance 
of  principles  such  as  these  may  seem  unnecessary. 
Yet  they  had  their  raison  d'etre.  In  cases  of 
tort  and  felony  the  lord  of  a  fief  possessed  the 
right  of  justice  high  and  low.  There  are  crimes 
now  which  the  law  cannot  reach.  It  was  the 
same  way  then.  There  were  controversies  which 
no  mere  man  could  adjust.  To  remedy  the  de- 
fect the  wives  of  the  lords  created  tribunals  of 
their  own. 

In  the  English  dominions  on  the  Continent 
generally,  as  also  in  Flanders,  Champagne  and 
Provence,  these  courts  were  frequent.  In  de- 
scribing them  Nostradamus  said  that  "  disputes 
arising  from  the  beautiful  and  subtle  questions 
of  love  were  submitted  to  illustrious  ladies  who, 


156  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

after  deliberation,  rendered  judgments  termed, 
'  Lous  arrests  d'amours.'  " 

Of  the  beautiful  and  subtle  questions  here  is 
one:  A  confidant  charged  by  a  friend  with 
messages  of  love  found  the  lady  so  to  his  liking 
that  he  addressed  her  in  his  own  behalf.  Instead 
of  being  repulsed  he  was  encouraged.  Where- 
upon the  injured  party  brought  suit.  Maitre 
Andre,  prothonotary  of  the  court,  relates  that 
the  plaintiff  prayed  that  the  fraud  be  submitted 
to  the  Countess  of  Champagne,  who,  sitting  in 
banco  with  sixty  ladies,  heard  the  complaint  and, 
on  deliberation,  rendered  judgment  as  follows: 
"It  is  ordered  that  the  defendants  henceforth 
be  debarred  the  frequentation  of  honest  people." 
Here  is  another  instance.  A  knight  was  charged 
by  a  lady  not  to  say  or  do  anything  in  her  praise. 
It  so  fell  about  that  her  name  was  lightly  taken. 
The  knight  challenged  the  defamer.  Thereupon 
the  lady  contended  that  he  had  forfeited  all  claim 
to  her  regard.  Action  having  been  brought  the 
court  decided  that  the  defence  of  a  lady  being 
never  illicit  the  knight  should  be  rehabilitated 
in  favor  and  reinstated  in  grace.  Which,  the 
prothonotary  states,  was  done. 

It  was  over  these  delicate  matters,  over  others 
more  delicate  still,  that  the  Courts  of  Love  claimed 
and  exercised  jurisdiction.  Execution  of  the 
decrees  may  seem  to  have  been  arduous.     But 


THE   PARLIAMENTS   OF   JOY     157 

judgments  were  enforced  not  by  a  constabulary 
but  by  the  community.  Disregard  of  a  decision 
entailed  not  loss  of  liberty  but  loss  of  caste.  In 
the  case  of  a  man,  entrance  was  denied  him  at 
the  tournaments.  In  the  case  of  a  woman, 
the  drawbridges  were  up.  Throughout  the  land 
there  was  no  one  to  receive  her.  As  a  result  the 
delinquent  was  rare.  So  too  was  contempt  of 
the  jurists.  Sometimes  a  girl  appeared  before 
them.     Sometimes  a  king. 

To-day  it  all  seems  very  trivial.  But  at  the 
time  marriage  was  a  matter  concerning  which 
the  party  most  interested  had  the  least  to  say. 
Love  was  not  an  element  of  it  and  disinclination 
a  detail.  Moreover  in  the  apoplectic  conditions 
of  the  world  a  woman's  natural  guardians  were 
not  always  at  hand,  the  troubadour  always  was; 
the  consequence  being  that  a  lady  was  left  to  do 
more  or  less  as  she  saw  fit  and  it  was  in  order 
that  she  might  do  what  was  fittest  that  decretals 
were  made. 

They  served  another  purpose.  They  set  a 
standard  which  is  observed  to-day.  Article  XI 
of  the  code :  Non  decet  amare  quarum  pudor  est 
nuptias  affectare, — It  is  not  seemly  to  love  one 
whom  it  would  not  be  seemly  to  marry,  is  one  of 
the  pivots  of  modern  ethics.  On  it  was  con- 
structed Ruy  Bias.  The  tale  is  tragic  but 
then   the   entire    realm   of   love    is    choked   with 


158  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

tragic  tales,  though  it  is  less  so  when  the  precept 
is  observed  and  still  less  when  there  is  regard 
for  the  injunction  against  double  loving. 

In  addition,  the  provisions  of  the  code  were 
instrumental  in  originating  that  regard  for  appear- 
ances which  society  previously  had  neglected  and 
from  which  contemporaneous  refinement  proceeds. 
Chivalry  came  with  the  crusades ;  with  the  Courts 
of  Love,  good  manners. 

They  had  another  merit.  In  guiding  the 
affections  they  educated  them.  To  love  and  to 
be  loved  is  not  simple  but  complex.  Love  may 
come  from  mutual  attraction.  That  is  common. 
It  may  come  of  natural  selection,  which  is  rare. 
Natural  selection  presupposes  a  discernment 
that  leads  a  man  through  mazes  of  women  to  one 
woman  in  particular,  to  a  woman  who  to  him  is 
the  one  woman  in  all  the  world,  to  the  woman 
who  has  been  awaiting  him  and  who  recognizes 
him  when  he  comes.  Or  vice  versa.  In  the 
Middle  Ages  it  was  usually  from  the  woman  that 
the  initial  recognition  proceeded.  It  was  she 
who  did  the  selecting.  In  the  best  society  she 
does  so  still. 

To  encourage  her  the  Courts  of  Love  authorized 
a  form  of  contemplative  union  in  which  lovers 
exchanged  vows  similar  to  those  taken  at  the 
investiture  of  a  vassal.  The  knight  knelt  before 
the  lady,  put  his  hands  in  hers  and  acknowledged 


THE   PARLIAMENTS   OF   JOY     159 

himself  her  liegeman.  The  homage  was  formally 
accepted.  The  knight  received  a  kiss  which  was 
renewable  every  year.  But  nothing  more.  In 
theory  at  least.  Any  further  reward  of  fealty 
being  due  to  the  sheer  generosity  of  the  lady 
who  then  was  lord.  The  kiss  however  was 
collectable.  In  the  event  of  deferred  payment 
action  could  be  brought.  One  was.  By  way  of 
defence  the  defendant  alleged  that  Mr.  Danger 
was  present.  Mr.  Danger  was  the  defendant's 
husband.1 

These  hymens  of  the  heart,  instituted  by  virtue 
of  Article  I,  Causa  conjugii  ab  amore  non  est 
excusatio  recta — Against  love  marriage  is  an 
insufficient  excuse — resulted  in  a  sort  of  moral 
bigamy  that  was  sanctioned  generally  by  custom, 
in  Provence  by  the  clergy,  and  which,  like  marriage 
was  contracted  in  the  presence  of  witnesses. 
Gerard  de  Roussillon,  a  mediaeval  writer,  de- 
scribed a  lady  who  while  marrying  one  man 
coincidentally  gave  a  ring  and  promise  of  love 
to  another.  The  proceeding  was  strictly  in 
accordance  with  the  sentiment  of  the  day  which 
regarded  love  as  incompatible  with  marriage. 

A  case  in  point  is  contained  in  the  reports  of 

Martial    d'Auvergne.     A    knight    loved    a    lady 

who  could  not  accept  his  vows  inasmuch  as  she 

loved  some  one  else.     But  she  promised  to  do  so 

1  Martial  d'Auvergne:   Les  Arrets  d' Amour. 


160  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

if  it  so  happened  that  she  lost  the  other  man — 
a  contingency  which  to-day  would  mean  if  he 
died  or  ran  away.  Very  differently  the  juris- 
prudence of  the  epoch  interpreted  it.  The  lady 
married  the  man  she  loved  whereupon  the  knight 
exacted  fulfilment  of  the  agreement.  Queen 
Eleanor,  before  whom  the  case  was  heard,  de- 
cided in  his  favor,  on  the  ground,  perhaps  subtle, 
that  the  lady's  husband,  in  becoming  her  husband, 
became  ipso  facto,  by  that  very  act,  amatorially 
defunct. 

In  a  case  not  similar  but  cognate,  judgment 
rendered  by  the  Countess  of  Champagne  was 
as  follows :  "  By  these  presents  we  declare  and 
affirm  that  love  cannot  exist  between  married 
people  for  the  reason  that  lovers  grant  everything 
unconstrainedly,  whereas  married  people  are 
obliged  to  submit  to  one  another.  Wherefore 
shall  this  decision,  reached  prudently  in  conform- 
ity with  the  opinion  of  many  other  ladies,  be  to 
you  all  a  constant  and  irrefragible  truth.  So 
adjudged  in  the  year  of  grace  1174,  the  third 
day  of  the  calends  of  May,  seventh  indiction." 

In  another  case  Ermengarde  of  Narbonne 
decided  that  the  addition  of  the  marriage  tie 
cannot  invalidate  a  prior  affair,  nisi — unless  the 
lady  has  in  mind  to  have  done  with  love  forever. 

Decretals  of  this  nature,  however  absurd  they 
may  seem,  were  at  least  serviceable  in  the  reforms 


THE   PARLIAMENTS   OF   JOY      161 

they  effected.  According  to  the  civil  law  if  a 
husband  absented  himself  for  ten  years,  the 
wife  had  the  right  to  remarry.  According  to 
the  law  of  love,  the  absence  of  a  lover;  however 
prolonged,  did  not  release  the  lady  from  her 
attachment.  The  civil  law  authorized  a  widow 
to  remarry  in  a  year  and  a  day.  The  law  of  love 
exacted  for  the  heart  a  widowhood  of  twice  that 
period.  The  civil  law  permitted  a  husband  to 
beat  his  wife  reasonably.  The  law  of  love 
enforced  for  the  lady  respect.1 

The  resulting  conditions,  perhaps  analogous 
to  those  of  eighteenth-century  Italy  where  every 
woman  of  position  had,  in  addition  to  a  husband 
a  cavaliere  servente,  succeeded  none  the  less  in 
developing  outside  of  marriage  and  directly  in 
opposition  to  it,  the  ideal  of  what  marriage  is,  the 
union  not  only  of  hands  but  of  hearts.  The 
Courts  of  Love  might  go,  their  work  endured. 
They  made  woman  what  she  had  been  in  republi- 
can Rome  and  what  she  is  to-day,  the  guide  and 
associate  of  man. 

Slowly  thereafter  they  followed  knight-errantry 
to  its  grave  without  however  meanwhile  becoming 
what  Hallam  described  as  "fantastical  solem- 
nities." "I  never  had,"  Hallam  declared,  "the 
patience  to  look  at  the  older  writers  who  discussed 
this   tiresome    subject."     In   view  of   which    his 

1  Assises  de  Jerusalem. 
11 


162  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

opinions  are  not  important,  particularly  as  the 
Courts  of  Love  so  far  from  becoming  fantastic 
went  to  the  other  extreme.  Instead  of  questions 
beautiful  and  subtle,  there  arose  others,  highly 
realistic,  together  with  investigations  de  visu 
which  young  gentlewomen  treated  in  terms 
precise. 

Before  decadence  set  in,  at  a  time  when  these 
establishments  were  at  their  best  and  notwith- 
standing the  ethical  purport  of  their  decisions, 
misadventures  occurred.  Of  these,  one,  com- 
monly reported  by  all  authorities,  is  curious. 

The  Lord  Raymond  of  Castel-Roussillon  had 
for  wife  the  Lady  Marguerite.  Guillaume  de 
Cabstain,  a  lad  of  quality,  came  to  their  court 
where  he  was  made  page  to  the  countess  and 
where,  after  certain  episodes,  he  composed  for 
her  the  lai  which  runs : 

"Sweet  are  the  thoughts 
That  love  awakes  in  me." 

Etc.  When  Raymond  heard  the  song  he  led 
Guillaume  far  from  the  castle,  cut  his  head  off, 
put  it  in  a  basket,  cut  his  heart  out,  put  it  also 
in  a  basket,  returned  to  the  castle,  had  the  heart 
roasted  and  had  it  served  at  table  to  his  wife. 
The  Lady  Marguerite  ate  without  knowing  what 
it  was.  The  repast  concluded,  Raymond  stood 
up.     He  told  his  wife  that  what  she  had  eaten 


THE   PARLIAMENTS   OF   JOY     163 

was  the  heart  of  the  page.  He  fetched  and  showed 
her  the  head  and  asked  how  the  heart  had  tasted. 

The  Lady  Marguerite,  recognizing  the  head, 
replied  that  the  heart  had  been  so  appetizing 
that  never  other  food  or  drink  should  take  from 
her  its  savor.  Raymond  ran  at  her  with  his 
sword.  She  fled  away,  threw  herself  from  a 
balcony  and  broke  her  skull. 

The  story,  though  commonly  reported,  has 
not  been  substantiated.  It  occurred  a  long 
time  ago  and,  it  may  be,  never  occurred  at  all. 
But  as  a  picture  of  mediaeval  love,  life  and  death, 
it  is  exact.  If  it  did  not  occur,  it  might  have. 
Joy's  fingers  are  ever  at  its  lips  bidding  farewell. 
It  was  in  tha*  attitude  that  its  parliaments 
departed. 


IV 
THE  DOCTORS  OF  THE   GAY  SCIENCE 

Before  joy  and  its  parliaments  had  dispersed 
the  general  gloom,  minstrels  went  about  singing 
distressed  maidens,  imprisoned  women,  jealous 
husbands,  the  gamut  of  love  and  lore.  Usually 
they  sang  to  ears  that  were  indifferent  or  curious 
merely.  But  occasionally  a  knight  errant  over- 
heard and  at  once,  lance  in  hand,  he  was  off  on 
his  horse  to  the  rescue.  The  source  of  the 
minstrel's  primal  migration  was  Spain. 

In  the  mediaeval  night,  Spain,  or,  more  exactly 
Andalusia,  was  brilliant.  On  the  banks  of  the 
Great  River,  Al-Ouad-al-Kebyr,  subsequently 
renamed  Guadalquivir,  twelve  hundred  cities 
shimmered  with  mosques,  with  enamelled  pavil- 
ions, with  tinted  baths,  alcazars,  minarets. 
From  three  hundred  thousand  filigree'd  pulpits, 
the  glory  of  Allah  and  of  Muhammad  his  prophet 
were  daily  proclaimed. 

At  Ez  Zahara,  the  pavilion  of  the  pleasures 
of  the  Caliphs  of  Cordova,  forty  thousand  work- 
men, working   for   forty  years,  had  produced  a 


DOCTORS  OF  THE  GAY  SCIENCE      165 

stretch  of  beauty  unequalled  then  and  unexceeded 
since,  a  palace  of  dream,  of  gems,  of  red  gold 
walls;  a  court  of  alabaster  fountains  that  tossed 
quick-silver  in  dazzling  sheafs;  a  patio  of 
jasper  basins  in  which  floated  silver  swans;  a 
residence  ceiled  with  damasquinures,  curtained 
with  Isfahan  silks;  an  edifice  filled  with  poets 
and  peris,  an  establishment  that  thirteen  thousand 
people  served.1 

Ez  Zahara,  literally,  The  Fairest,  a  caliph  had 
built  to  the  memory  of  a  love.  It  was  regal.  The 
caliphs  were  also.  The  reigns  of  some  of  them 
were  so  prodigal  that  they  were  called  honey- 
moons. At  Seville  and  Granada  were  other 
palaces,  homes  as  they  were  called,  but  homes 
of  flowers,  of  whispers,  of  lovers  or  of  peace. 
Throughout  the  land  generally  there  was  a  chain 
of  pavilions  and  cities  through  which  minstrels 
passed,  going  up  and  down  the  Great  River, 
serenading  the  banks  that  sent  floating  back 
wreaths  of  melody,  the  sound  of  clear  voices, 
the  tinkle  of  dulcimers  and  lutes.  But  most 
beautiful  was  Cordova.  Under  the  Moors  it 
eclipsed  Damascus,  surpassed  Baghdad,  out- 
shone Byzance.  It  was  the  noblest  place  on 
earth. 

Throughout  Europe  at  that  time,  the  Moors 

1Conde:    Historia  de  la  dominacion    de   los  Arabes   en 
Espafia. 


166  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

and  the  Byzantines  alone  had  the  leisure  and  the 
inclination  to  think.     They  alone  read  and  alone 
preserved  the  literature  of  the  past.     Together 
they  supplied  it  to  the  Renaissance.     But  from 
the   Moors   went   poetry  of  their  own.     It  was 
they  who  invented  rhyme.1       Charmed  with  the 
novelty,  they  wrote  everything  in  it,  challenges, 
contracts,  treaties,  diplomatic  notes,  and  messages 
of    love.     The    composition    of    poetry    was    an 
occupation,  usual  in  itself,  which  led  to  unusual 
honors,  to  the  dignity  of  office  and  high  place. 
Ordinary  conversation  not  infrequently  occurred 
in  verse,  which  was  otherwise  facilitated  by  the 
extreme  wealth  of  the  language.     Some  of  the 
dictionaries — known  generally  from  their  immens- 
ity as  Oceans — which,  escaping  later  the  unholy 
hand  of  the  Holy  Office,2  the  Escorial  preserved, 
were  arranged  not  alphabetically  but  in  sequence 
of  rhyme.     In  addition  to  the  latter  the  Moors 
invented  the   serenade  and  for  it  the   dulcimer 
and    guitar.     They    not    only    lived    poetry   and 
wrote  it  and  talked  it  but  died  of  it.    The  unusual 
honors  to  which  it  led,  and  which  resulted  in  a 
government  of  poets, left  them  defenceless.     Verse 
which  was  their  glory  was  also  their  destruction. 
1 "  Ex  Arabibus  versum  simili  sono  concluendorum  artem 
accepimus."     Huet. 

2  "  De  orden  del  cardenal  Cisneros  se  abrazaron  mas  de 
ochenta  mil  volumenes  como  si  no  tuvieran  mas  libros  que  su 
Alcoran." — Aledres;  Description  de  Espana. 


DOCTORS  OF  THE  GAY  SCIENCE      167 

Meanwhile  it  was  from  them  that  the  world  got 
algebra  and  chivalry  besides. 

Chivalry  has  been  derived  from  Germany. 
The  Teutons  invented  the  false  conception  of 
honor — revenge  for  an  affront,  the  duel  and 
judgment  by  arms.  That  is  not  chivalry  or  even 
bravery,  it  is  bravado.  Bravery  itself,  perhaps 
the  sole  virtue  of  the  early  Teuton,  was  not  the 
only  one  or  even  the  first  that  was  required  of  the 
Moorish  Rokh.  To  merit  that  title  which  was 
equivalent  to  that  of  knight,  many  qualities 
were  indispensable:  courtesy,  courage,  gentility, 
poetry,  diction,  strength,  and  address.  But 
courtesy  came  first.  Then  bravery,  then  gen- 
tility, in  which  was  comprised  the  elements  that 
go  to  the  making  of  the  gentleman — loyalty, 
consideration,  the  sense  of  justice,  respect  for 
women,  protection  of  the  weak,  honor  in  war 
and  in  love.1 

These   things   the   Teutons   neither  knew  nor 

possessed.     The  Muslim  did.     Prior  to  the  first 

crusade,    the    male    population    of    Christendom 

was    composed    of    men-at-arms,    serfs,    priests, 

monks.     The    knight    was    not    there.     But    in 

Sicily,  at  the  court  of  the  polished  Norman  kings 

...  Fue  muy  buen  caballero,  y  se  decia  de  el  que 
tenia  las  diez  prendas  que  distinguen  a  los  nobles  y  generosos, 
que  consisten  en  bondad,  valentia,  caballeria,  gentileza, 
poesia,  bien  hablar,  fuerza,  destreza  en  la  lanza,  en  la  espada 
y  en  el  tirar  del  arco."     Conde,  II.,  63. 


168  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

where  Saracens  had  gone,  particularly  in  Spain, 
and  certainly  at  Poictiers,  the  knight  had  appeared. 
The  chivalry  which  he  introduced  was  an  insuf- 
ficient gift  to  barbarism.  To  it  the  Moors  added 
perfumery  and  the  language  of  flowers. 

Muhammad's  biographers  state  that  there 
were  but  two  things  for  which  he  really  cared — 
women  and  perfume.  His  followers  the  Moors 
could  not  do  more  than  do  better.  Other 
inventions  of  theirs  being  inadequate,  they  joined 
to  them  the  art  of  preserving  perfume  by  distil- 
lation and  the  art,  higher  still,  of  perfuming  life 
with  love.  Muhammad  was  unable  to  convert 
humanity  to  a  belief  in  the  uniqueness  of  Allah, 
but  the  Moors,  for  a  while  at  least,  converted 
Europe  to  a  belief  that  love  was  unique.  Mu- 
hammad created  a  paradise  of  houris  and  musk. 
More  subtly  the  Moors  created  a  heaven  on 
earth.  It  had  its  defects  as  everything  earthly 
must  have,  but  such  were  its  delights  that  the 
courtesan  had  no  place  in  its  parks.  For  the 
first  time  in  history  a  nation  appeared  that 
renounced  Venus  Pandemos.  For  the  first  time 
a  nation  appeared  among  whom  woman  was 
neither  punished  nor  bought.1 

In  the  Koran  it  is  written :  "  Man  shall  have 
pre-eminence  over  woman  because  of  the  advan- 

1,1  Dans  les  pays  sournis  a  l'lslamon  ne  voit  aucune  femme 
publique." — Viardot:  Hist,  des  Arabes. 


DOCTORS  OF  THE  GAY  SCIENCE       1G9 

tages  wherein  God  hath  caused  one  of  them  to 
excel  the  other.  The  honest  women  are  obedient, 
careful  in  the  absence  of  their  hubsands.  But 
those  whose  perverseness  ye  shall  be  apprehensive 
of,  rebuke,  remove  into  separate  apartments 
and  chastise." 

The  Moors  were  devout.  They  were  also 
schismatic.  They  had  separated  from  Oriental 
Islam.  Even  in  the  privacy  of  the  harem  they 
would  not  have  struck  a  woman  with  a  rose. 

The  harem  was  not  a  Muhammadan  invention. 
It  was  a  legacy  from  Solomon.  Originally  the 
Muslim  faith  was  a  creed  of  sobriety  that  included 
a  deference  to  women  theretofore  unknown. 
Its  subsequent  corruption  was  due  to  Assyria 
and  the  ferocious  apostolicism  of  the  Turk.  The 
Islamic  seclusion  of  women  came  primarily 
from  an  excess  of  delicacy.  It  was  devised  in 
order  that  their  beauty  might  not  excite  desires 
in  the  hearts  of  strangers  and  they  be  affronted 
by  the  ardor  of  covetous  eyes.  That  ardor  the 
Moors  deflected  with  a  talisman  composed  of 
the  magic  word  Masch-Allah  which,  placed  in 
filigree  on  the  forehead  of  the  beloved  was 
supposed  to  indicate — and  perhaps  did — that 
her  heart  was  not  her  own.  In  Baghdad  where 
men  are  said  to  have  been  so  inflammable  that  they 
fell  in  love  with  a  woman  at  the  rumor  of  her 
beauty,  at  even  the  mere  sight  of  the  impress  of 


170  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

her  hand,  it  was  not  entirely  unnatural  that  they 
should  have  secluded  those  for  whom  they  cared. 
With  finer  jealousy  the  Moors  suggested  to  the 
women  who  cared  for  them  the  advantage  of 
secluding  themselves.  To-day  a  woman  who 
loves  will  do  that  unprompted. 

In  the  suggestion  of  the  Moors  there  was 
nothing  emphatic.  Usually  girls  of  position  saw, 
ito  the  day  of  their  marriage,  but  relatives  and 
womenfolk  whom  the  husband  and  his  friends 
then  routed  with  daggers  of  gold.  But  access 
to  Chain-of-Hearts  was  not  otherwise  always 
impossible.  In  default  of  gold  daggers  there 
were  silk  ladders  let  down  from  high  windows 
and  up  which  one  might  climb.  In  the  local 
tales  of  love  and  chivalry,  in  the  story,  for  instance, 
of  Medjnoun  and  Le'ilah,  in  that  of  the  Dovazdeh 
Rokh — the  Twelve  Knights — many  such  ladders 
and  windows  appear,  many  are  the  kisses,  mul- 
tiple are  the  furtive  delights.  Apart  from  them 
history  has  frequent  mention  of  Andalusian 
Sapphos,  free,  fervid,  poetic,  charming  the 
leisures  of  caliphs,  or,  after  an  exacter  pattern  of 
the  Lesbian,  instructing  other  girls  in  what  were 
called  the  keys  of  felicities — the  divans  of  the 
poets,  the  art  and  theory  of  verse ;  more  austerely 
still,  in  mathematics  and  law.1 

To  please  young  women  of  that  distinction, 
1  Conde,  II.,  93. 


DOCTORS  OF  THE  GAY  SCIENCE      171 

a  man  had  to  be  something  more  than  a  ealiph, 
something  else  than  violently  brave.  Neces- 
sarily he  had  to  be  expert  in  fantasias  with  arms 
and  horse,  but  he  had  to  be  also  discreet;  in 
addition  he  had  to  be  able  to  contend  and  success- 
fully in  the  moufakhara,  or  tournaments  of  song 
— struggles  of  glory  that  proceeded  directly  from 
Mekke  where  the  verses  of  the  victors  were 
affixed  with  gold  nails  to  the  doors  of  the  Mosque. 
From  these  tournaments  all  modern  poetry 
proceeds.  Acclimatized,  naturalized  and  embel- 
lished in  Andalusia,  they  were  imitated  there  by 
the  encroaching  Castilians  who  proudly  but 
falsely  called  themselves  los  primeros  padres  de 
la  poesia  vulgar. 

At  that  time,  the  Provencal  tongue,  called  the 
Limosin  or  Langue  d'oc,  was  spoken  not  only 
throughout  the  meridional  provinces  of  France 
but  generally  in  Christian  Spain.1  Whatever  was 
common  to  Spanish  poetry  was  common  to  that 
of  Provence:  both  drank  from  the  same  source, 
the  overflowing  cup  of  the  Moors.  The  original 
form  of  each  is  that  employed  in  the  divans  of 
the  latter.  There  is  in  them  also  the  tell-tale 
novelty  rhyme  which,  unknown  to  Greece  and 
Rome,  lower  Latinity  had  not  achieved.  In 
addition  the  Provencal  and  Spanish  tensons,  or 

1  Escolano:  Historia  de  Valencia.     "  La  lengua  maestria  de 
la  Espafia  es  la  lemosina." 


172  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

contentions  of  song,  are  but  replicas  of  the 
moufakhara,  or  struggles  of  glory,  while  the 
minstrel  going  up  and  down  the  Great  River  is 
the  obvious  father  of  the  itinerant  poets  whom 
Barbarossa  welcomed  in  Germany  and  from  whom 
the  Minnestinger  came.  In  Italy,  Provencal 
verse  was  the  foundation  of  that  of  Dante  and 
Petrarch.  From  it  in  England  Chaucer  pro- 
ceeds. In  Aragon  it  founded  the  gaya  cienca 
— the  gay  science,  which  passing  into  Provence 
overspread  the  world.  The  passing  was  effected 
by  the  troubadour,  a  title  derived  from  trobar,  to 
compose,  whence  troubadour,  a  composer  of  verse. 

Technically  the  troubadour  was  not  only  a 
composer  but  a  knight  and  not  merely  that  but  the 
representative  of  chivalry  in  its  supreme  expres- 
sion. Poetry  was  the  attribute  of  his  order  as 
joy  was  the  parure  of  the  preux  chevalier.  But 
though  except  in  bearing  and  appearance  the 
knight  did  not  have  to  be  poetic,  the  troubadour 
had  to  be  poetic  and  chivalrous  as  well.  The 
vocation  therefore,  which  in  addition  to  these 
characteristics  presupposed  also  rank  and  wealth, 
was  such  that  while  a  troubadour  might  disdain 
to  be  king,  there  were  kings,  Alfonso  of  Aragon 
and  Cceur-de-Lion  among  others,  who  were 
proud  to  be  troubadours. 

Rank  was  not  essentially  a  prerequisite. 
Poetry,     exalting     and     fastidious,     occasionally 


DOCTORS  OF  THE  GAY  SCIENCE      173 

stooped,  lifting  from  the  commonality  a  man 
naturally  though  not  actually  born  for  the  sphere. 
The  Muse  aiding,  Bernard  de  Yentadour,  a 
baker's  son,  was  raised  to  the  lips  of  the  rather 
volatile  Queen  Eleanor.  But  the  process,  hazar- 
dous in  itself,  was  infrequent.  Royals  were  not 
necessarily  on  a  footing  with  troubadours,  but 
the  latter,  who  were  the  peers  of  kings,  required, 
for  the  maintenance  of  their  position,  abundant 
means.  They  held  it  becoming  to  be  ceaselessly 
lavish,  to  play  high  and  long,  to  dazzle  not  only 
in  the  tensons  but  in  the  banquets  and  jousts. 
Impoverishment  supervening  they  went  forth  in 
the  crusades  to  die,  or,  less  finely,  dropped  back 
among  the  jongleurs,  minstrels,  strollers  and  mere 
poets  with  whom  subsequently  they  were  generally 
confused.  These  latter,  sometimes  stipendiary, 
sometimes  donatable  like  jesters  and  fools,  told 
in  their  verse  of  great  ladies  whom  they  had  never 
seen,  or  in  the  quality  of  handy  man  attached 
themselves  to  women  of  rank,  to  whom  they  gave 
songs  in  return  for  graces  which  included  largesse, 
acquiring  in  their  society  a  knowledge  more  or 
less  incomplete  of  the  niceties  of  love  and  occa- 
sionally, if  their  verse  were  good,  the  title  of 
Maestro  d'Amor.  Even  so,  only  in  the  embroi- 
dery of  legend  were  they  troubadours. 

The  troubadours,   the   true   masters  and   real 
doctors  of  the  gay   science,   in   full   armor,   the 


174  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

visor  up,  the  lance  in  bucket,  rode  from  keep  to 
keep,  from  court  to  court,  from  one  to  another 
of  the  long  string  of  castles  that  stretched  through- 
out Provence,  throughout  the  English  districts 
on  the  Continent,  throughout  England  as  well, 
celebrating  as  they  passed  the  beauty  of  this 
chatelaine  and  of  that,  breaking  lances  for  women, 
devising  new  lays  to  their  eyes,  contending  with 
rivals  in  duels  of  song,  challenging  them  in  the 
tourneys,  singing  and  killing  with  equal  satis- 
faction, leading  generally  a  life  vagabond,  prodi- 
gal, puerile,  delightful,  absurd  and  humanizing 
in  the  extreme. 

Previously  keeps  and  castles  were  lairs  of  ra- 
pine and  of  brutes,  conditions  which  chivalry 
and  the  Courts  of  Love  remodelled.  But  the 
coincidental  influence  of  poetry  expressed  by 
the  best  and  richest  men  of  the  day  had  an  effect 
so  edulcifying  that  whatever  crapulousness  the 
knight  overlooked  the  troubadour  extinguished. 

Nothing  is  perfect.  The  system  like  all  others 
had  its  defects.  In  keeps,  when  tilts,  feasts, 
and  entertainments  were  over,  the  boudoir's 
more  relaxing  atmosphere,  that  of  the  adjoining 
balconies  and  outlying  gardens  as  well,  had  also 
their  effect.  The  presence  there  of  a  man  whose 
one  object  was  to  sing  love  and  make  it,  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  stranger  and  of  all  men  the  stranger 
who  but  comes  and  passes,  disturbs  the  imagin- 


DOCTORS  OF  THE  GAY  SCIENCE      175 

ation  most;  the  further  fact  that  if  he  but  so 
pleased  he  could  in  his  lays  trail  the  fame  of  a 
lady  from  Northumbria  to  I^ebanon,  the  per- 
fectly natural  wish  for  such  renown,  the  equally 
feminine  disinclination  to  be  ignored  when  others 
were  praised,  the  concomitant  desire  to  have  a 
troubadour  or  a  part  of  one,  as  one's  very  own, 
these  stimulants  had  consequences  that  were 
not  always  very  ethical. 

The  troubadour's  religion,  intoxicating  in 
itself,  was  love.  That  was  his  creed,  his  voca- 
tion, his  life,  his  death.  Song  was  its  vehicle, 
his  presence  its  introduction.  He  exhaled  it. 
The  perfume,  always  heady,  but  which  in  its 
first  fragrance  had  mended  manners,  turned 
acid  and  ended  by  dissolving  morals.  They 
melted  before  it.  The  social  conditions  that 
prevailed  in  the  Renaissance  and  later  in  the 
Restoration  and  Regency,  proceeded  directly 
from  these  poets  who,  meanwhile,  in  a  cataclysm 
had  vanished. 

Their  terrific  ablation  was  due  to  an  intercon- 
nection with  the  Albigenses,  a  Languedoc  sect 
who,  in  a  jumble  of  Gnosticism  and  Manicheism, 
professed  that  since  evil  is  coeval  with  good  it 
must  be  just  as  justifiable;  hence  there  is  nothing 
blamable,  everything  is  relative  and  morality — 
unobligatory — a  matter  of  taste. 

Provence,    always    receptive    to   Orientalisms, 


176  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

was  charmed  with  theories  that  gave  a  mystic 
sanction  to  troubadourian  views.  Caught  up 
and  repeated,  discussed  in  tournament  and  tenson, 
the  opinions  of  ladies  and  lovers  on  the  subject 
would  have  disturbed  nobody,  history  would 
have  ignored  them,  had  the  original  heretics  been 
satisfied  with  the  plaything  they  had  found. 
But  they  compared  it  to  official  religion.  They 
also  questioned  the  prerogatives  of  the  Holy  See. 

Indignantly  the  Papacy  pitted  Christianity 
against  it,  as  already  it  had  pitted  the  latter 
against  Islam.  In  this  instance  with  greater 
success.  From  a  thousand  pulpits  a  new  relig- 
ious war  was  preached.  The  fanaticism  of 
Europe  was  aroused.  Provence  was  stormed. 
Chateaux  were  levelled,  vines  uprooted,  the 
harvests  of  poetry  and  song  destroyed.  Sixty 
thousand  people  were  massacred.  The  Inquisi- 
tion was  founded.  Plentifully  the  doctors  of  the 
gay  science  were  burned.  In  spite  of  chivalry, 
in  spite  of  love,  in  spite  of  verse,  in  spite  of 
Muhammad,  the  Moors  and  the  Madonna, 
Europe  was  barbarous  still. 

The  smoke,  obscuring  the  sky,  left  but  dark- 
ness. If  anywhere  there  was  light,  it  was  in 
Sicily,  always  volcanic,  or  in  Tuscany,  another 
Provence.  There  surviving  troubadours  escaped 
and  left  a  legacy  which  Dante,  Petrarch  and 
Boccaccio  diversely  shared. 


THE  APOTHEOSIS 

In  the  boyhood  of  Dante,  Florence,  the  Flower 
City,  was  a  place  of  much  beauty,  of  perfect 
calm,  of  almost  perfect  equality,  of  pleasurable 
and  polished  life.  There  a  brigade,  the  Brigata 
Amoroso,  formed  of  a  thousand  people,  had  a 
lord  who  was  a  Lord  of  Love.  During  one  of 
their  recurrent  festivals  an  entertainment  was 
held  at  the  home  of  Folco  Portinari.  To  such 
entertainments  Boccaccio  said  that  children  fre- 
quently accompanied  their  parents.  To  this 
particular  entertainment,  Dante,  then  a  lad  of 
nine,  came  with  his  father.  He  found  there  a 
number  of  boys  and  girls,  among  whom  was 
Folco's  daughter,  Beatrice,  a  child  with  delicate 
features  whose  speech  and  attitude  were  perhaps 
superserious  for  her  age. 

Dante  looked  at  her.  "At  that  moment," 
he  afterward  wrote,  "  I  may  truly  say  that  the 
spirit  of  life  which  dwells  in  the  most  secret 
chambers  of  my  heart,  trembled  in  such  wise 
that  the  least  pulses  of  my  being  shook.  .  .  . 
12 


178  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

So  noble  was  her  manner,  that  assuredly  one 
might  repeat  of  her  the  words  of  Homer:  'She 
seemed  born  not  of  mortal  but  of  God.' 

Years  passed  during  which  often  he  encoun- 
tered her,  without,  however,  a  word  being  inter- 
changed. Subsequently,  at  a  festival,  she  recog- 
nized him  and  bowed — "so  virtuously,"  he 
said,  "that  I  thought  myself  lifted  to  the  limits 
of  beatitude." 

Another  interval  ensued.  Again  she  met  him. 
Dante  was  then  twenty,  Beatrice  nineteen.  On 
this  occasion  she  omitted  to  bow.  The  omission 
affected  him  profoundly.  It  was  even  inspira- 
tional. He  began  to  write,  "  so  well "  said 
Boccaccio  "that  he  effaced  the  fame  of  poets 
that  had  been  and  menaced  that  of  those 
to  be." 

In  promenading  his  young  glory  he  again 
encountered  Beatrice,  this  time  in  a  house  where 
a  betrothal  was  being  celebrated.  On  entering 
he  was  so  emotionalized  that  he  had  to  lean 
against  a  wall.  The  women  who  were  present 
divined  the  reason.  Beatrice  was  there.  The 
situation  amused  them.  They  laughed.  Bea- 
trice also  laughed.1  Whether  or  not  it  was  her 
betrothal  that  was  being  feted  is  uncertain.  It 
may  have  been.  Shortly  she  became  the  wife  of 
Simon  dei  Bardi,  gentiluomo. 

1  "  Con  l'altre  donne  mia  vista  gabbate." 


THE   APOTHEOSIS  179 

Dante  more  profoundly  affected  than  ever 
cursed  the  day  on  which  they  met: 

Io  raaledico  il  di  ch'io  vidi  imprima 
La  luce  de'  vostri  occhi  traditori. 

To  the  melody  of  the  imprecation,  Petrarch, 
in  honor  of  Laura,  added  a  variant : 

Benedetto  sia  L'giorno,  e  1'raese,  e  l'anno. 

Both  were  unfortunate  in  their  loves  but  of  the 
two  Dante's  was  the  least  favored.  It  had  nothing 
for  sustenance.  Yet,  save  for  that  one  reproach, 
it  persisted.  Its  continuance  was  fully  justified 
by  the  code,  though,  in  the  absence  of  any  reci- 
procity whatever,  it  was  perhaps  more  vaporous 
than  any  that  the  codifiers  had  considered. 

Hitherto  Dante  had  hoped  but  for  a  bow. 
Thereafter  the  hope  seemed  ambitious.  He 
ceased  to  expect  so  much.  A  woman,  cognizant, 
as  all  Florence  was,  of  the  circumstances  said  to 
him :  "  Since  you  barely  dare  to  look  at  Beatrice, 
what  can  your  love  for  her  be  ?  "  Dante  answered : 
"The  dream  of  my  love  was  in  her  salutation 
but  since  it  has  pleased  her  to  withhold  it  from 
me,  my  happiness  now  resides  in  what  cannot 
be  withdrawn."  "And  what  is  that?"  the 
donna  asked.  "In  words  that  praise  her,"  he 
replied. 

Seemingly   instead   of   that,   instead   rather   of 


180  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

limiting  his  previous  ambition  to  a  salutation 
he  might  have  supplanted  Dei  Bardi.  Dante 
too  was  gentiluomo.  In  addition  he  was  famous. 
Had  he  asked,  doubtless  it  would  have  been 
given.  But  Dante,  nourished  on  troubadourian 
verse  and  views,  held  love  to  be  incompatible 
with  marriage.  Afterward,  if  any  Provencal 
suggestion  of  extra-matrimonial  possibilities  pre- 
sented itself,  it  was  too  incongruous  with  the 
ideal  to  be  detained.  Even  otherwise,  shortly 
and  speedily  Beatrice  died  and  he  very  nearly 
died  also. 

The  distraction  of  writing  of  her,  of  drawing 
angels  that  resembled  her,  these  occupations, 
combined  with  other  incidents,  consoled.  Then 
presently  he  had  visions,  among  them  one  in 
which  he  saw  that  which  decided  him  to  write 
nothing  further  until  he  could  do  so  more  wor- 
thily. "To  that  end,"  he  said,  "I  labor  all  I 
can,  as  she  well  knows.  Wherefore  if  it  please 
Him,  through  whom  all  things  live,  that  my  life 
be  suffered  to  continue  yet  awhile,  I  hope  one  day 
to  say  of  her  what  has  not  been  said  of  any  woman. 
After  which  may  it  please  the  Lord  of  Grace 
that  my  soul  go  hence  in  quest  of  the  Blessed 
Beatrice  who  now  gazes  continuously  on  the 
countenance  of  Him  qui  est  omnia  secula  bene- 
dictus.     Laus  Deo!" 

With  these  words,  with  which  the  Vita  Xuova 


THE   APOTHEOSIS  181 

ends,  the  Divina  Com/media  is  announced.  Vol- 
taire commended  an  imbecile  for  calling  the 
latter  a  monster.  It  is  regrettable  that  there  are 
not  more  like  it.  Other  imbeciles  have  called 
Beatrice  an  abstraction.  That  she  lived  is 
fully  attested.  Dante  admired  a  child  who 
became  a  young  woman  from  whom  he  asked 
next  to  nothing,  which,  being  refused,  he  asked 
nothing  at  all,  contenting  himself  with  laudations. 
From  that  moment,  Beatrice,  who  had  really 
been,  ceased  to  really  be.  She  became  a  per- 
sonified worship.  Finally  she  died  and  her 
death  was  her  assumption,  an  apotheosis  in  which 
typifying  the  Eternal  Feminine,  she  lifted  the 
poet  from  sphere  to  sphere,  from  glory  to  glory, 
to  the  heights  where,  imperishable,  he  stands. 

Said  Tennyson: 

King  that  hast  reigned  six  hundred  years  and  grown 

In  power  and  ever  growest  .  .  . 

I,  wearing  but  the  garland  of  a  day 

Cast  at  thy  feet  one  flower  that  fades  away. 

The  tribute,  perfect  in  itself,  was  perfectly 
deserved.  There  never  was  such  tenderness 
as  Dante's.  There  never  was  such  intensity. 
Save  only  in  the  case  of  the  human  oceans  that 
men  call  Homer  and  Shakespeare,  there  never 
has  been  such  greatness. 

Homer    engendered    antiquity.     From    Dante 


182  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

modernity  proceeds.  Of  Shakespeare,  England 
was  born.  Without  resemblance  to  one  another, 
on  their  thrones  in  the  ideal  each  sits  alone. 
Behind  them  is  the  past,  at  their  feet  the  present, 
before  them  the  centuries  unroll.  They  are  the 
immortals.  They  have  all  time  as  we  all  have 
our  day.  It  is  from  them  we  get  our  daily  bread. 
Their  genius  feeds  our  starving  souls.  Talent 
has  never  done  that.  Talent  makes  us  laugh 
and  forget  and  yawn.  Talent  is  agreeable,  it 
provides  us  with  pleasures,  with  means  of  get- 
ting rid  of  time.  But  to  the  heart  it  brings  no 
message,  for  the  soul  it  has  no  food.  It  is  ephem- 
eral, not  eternal.  Only  genius  and  its  art  endure. 
The  genius  of  Dante,  Beatrice  awoke,  of  his 
art  she  was  the  inspiration.  For  that  be  she, 
as  he  called  her,  Blessed, — thrice  Blessed  since 
she  did  not  love  him.  Had  she  loved  him,  he 
could  not  have  done  better,  that  is  not  possible, 
and  he  might  have  omitted  to  do  as  well. 

Dante  made  Francesca  say  of  Paolo: 

Questi  che  mai  da  me  non  fia  diviso, 
La  bocca  mi  bacift  tutto  tremente. 

Francesca  added: 

Quel  giorno  piii  non  vi  leggemmo  avante — we 
read  no  more  that  day.  Nor  on  any  other. 
Had  she,  from  whom  Dante  is  equally  inseparable, 


THE   APOTHEOSIS  183 

tremblingly  kissed  his  mouth,  it  may  he  that  not 
their  reading  merely  hut  his  writing  would  have 
ceased.  But  Dante,  whom  Petrarch  called  a 
miracle  of  nature,  was  not  Paolo.  Far  from 
attempting  to  kiss  Beatrice  he  did  not  even 
aspire  to  such  a  grace.  He  had,  as  the  genius 
should  have,  everything,  even  to  sex,  in  his  brain, 
a  circumstance  that  might  have  preserved  him 
from  Gemma  Donati  and  la  Gentucca, — the 
first,  his  wife;  the  second,  another's — dual 
infidelities  for  which,  at  the  summit  of  Purgatory, 
Beatrice,  who,  in  the  interim,  had  become  very 
feminine,  reproached  him  w^ith  slow  scorn. 

For  punishment  he  beheld  her.  The  spectacle 
of  her  beauty  was  such  that  memories  of  his  sins 
seared  him  like  thin  flames.  He  was  in  Purgatory. 
But  Beatrice  who  in  a  cloud  of  flowers — un  nuvola 
di  fiori — had  come,  forgave  him.  Together  then 
their  ascension  began.  Ella  guardava  suso,  ed 
io  in  lei.  She  looked  above  and  he  at  her.  In 
the  mounting  his  sins  fell  by.  As  they  did 
so  her  beauty  increased.  In  proportion  to  his 
redemption  she  became  more  fair. 

That  picture,  at  once  real  and  ideal,  displayed 
in  its  exquisiteness  the  miracle  of  two  hearts 
saving  and  embellishing  each  other.  Set  at  the 
threshold  of  modern  life  it  prefigured  what  love 
was  to  be,  what  it  is  now  when  it  truly  appears, 
but  what  it  was  long  in  becoming. 


184  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

It  had  no  part  in  the  conceptions  of  Cecco 
Angioleiri,  a  poet  contemporaneous,  very  vulgar, 
consequently  more  popular,  who  "sat"  his  heart 
on  a  donna  and  flung  at  her  cries  that  were 
squeaks. 

Io  ho  in  tal  donna  lo  mio  core  assiso, 
Che  chi  dicesse:    Ti  fo  imperadore, 
E  sta  che  non  la  veggi  per  due  ore, 
Io  li  direi:  Va  che  tu  sia  ucciso. 

Other  was  Petrarch, 

From  whose  brain-lighted  heart  were  thrown 
A  thousand  thoughts  beneath  the  sun, 
Each  lucid  with  the  name  of  One. 

The  One  was  Laura.  Petrarch,  young,  good- 
looking,  already  aureoled,  saw  her  first  at  matins 
in  a  church  at  Avignon.  She  too  was  young. 
Married,  a  woman  of  position,  of  probable 
beauty,  she  was  dark-eyed,  fair-haired,  pensive, 
serene.  With  spells  as  gossamer  as  those  of 
the  Monna  Bice,  at  once  she  imparadised  his 
heart.  Precipitately  he  presented  it  to  her.  She 
refused  it. 

Hughes  de  Sade,  her  husband,  was  a  perfectly 
unsympathetic  person,  jealous  without  reason, 
notoriously  hard.  Yet  his  excuse,  if  he  had  one, 
may  have  resided  in  local  conditions.  Avignon 
stately  and  luxurious,  was,  Petrarch  declared, 
the  gully  of  every  vice.     "There  is  here,"  he  said, 


THE  APOTHEOSIS  185 

"nothing  holy,  nothing  just,  nothing  human. 
Decency  and  modesty  are  unknown."1 

Yet  he  found  them  there.  Laura  represented 
both.  In  the  profligacy  of  the  Papal  city  she 
at  least  was  pure.  She  would  have  none  of 
Petrarch,  or,  more  exactly,  so  little  that  hardly 
can  it  be  said  to  count.  Rebuffed  he  departed. 
She  beckoned  him  back,  rebuffed  him  again 
and,  alternately,  for  twenty-one  years,  rebuffed 
and  beckoned,  preserving  his  love  without  accord- 
ing her  own,  giving  him  an  infrequent  smile, 
now  and  then  a  nod  from  a  window,  on  one 
memorable  occasion  as  much  as  the  touch  of 
her  hand.  Once  only,  and  that  at  their  last 
interview  her  eyes  looked  longly  in  his.  That 
was  all. 

To  be  near  her  he  purchased  at  Vaucluse  an 
estate  so  gloomy  that  his  servants  forsook  him 
and  where,  such  women  as  he  saw,  it  mortified 
him  to  look  at.  The  expression  is  his  own. 
Day  after  day  he  stood  before  her  gates,  which  he 
never  entered,  fully  repaid,  if  among  the  orange 
trees  there,  he  but  caught  sight  of  her.  On  one 
occasion  he  met  her  by  accident,  on  another  he 
was  fortunate  enough  to  be  able  to  restore  a  glove 
which  she  had  dropped,  again  in  a  reunion  where 
were  assembled  the  ladies  of  Avignon,  a  foreign 
prince  marched  up  to  the  woman  whom  Petrarch's 
xEpistolac  sine  titulo. 


186  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

verses  had  made  famous  and  kissed  her  on  the 
eyes.  It  was  a  prince's  privilege.  Petrarch 
related  the  occurrence  in  a  sonnet.  It  was 
incidents  of  this  character  that  form  the  bundle 
of  poetry  that  immortalized  them  both. 

Sometimes  he  rebelled.  He  went  away,  trav- 
elled, studied,  worked.  Whatever  he  did,  where- 
ever  he  were,  always,  in  haunting  constancy, 
she  was  before  him.  Always  her  presence  in- 
habited his  eyes.  He  tried  to  vanquish  the  love 
of  woman  in  the  love  of  God.  In  the  struggle 
it  was  he  who  was  defeated.  Even  age,  even 
death  could  not  aid  him.  Laura  ultimately  had 
nine  children.  She  was  growing  old,  certainly 
she  was  worn.  To  Petrarch  always  she  was  in 
the  first  festival  of  her  beauty. 

Blessed  be  the  day  and  the  month  and  the  year, 
And  the  season,  the  hour,  the  minute, 
And  the  fair  land  and  the  spot  itself  where 
Her  beautiful  eyes  subjected  my  spirit. 

It  was  that  which  he  had  ever  before  him. 
It  was  that  which  made  him  what  he  was,  the 
foremost  personality  of  his  day.  It  was  that 
which  distinguished  him  from  other  poets.  Un- 
like anybody,  every  one  wanted  to  resemble  him. 
It  was  love  that  did  it.  Dante  told  of  love  with 
an  intensity  that  was  divine.  Petrarch  wrote 
with  a  comprehensiveness  that  was  human. 
There  have  been  thousands  of  poets  and  but  one 


THE  APOTHEOSIS  187 

Dante,  myriads  of  lovers  and  but  one  Petrarch. 
Whether  Laura  deserved  his  devotion  must  be 
a  matter  of  opinion.  This  alone  is  obvious. 
She  made  his  life  a  combat  which  antiquity 
would  not  have  understood,  which  chivalry  would 
not  have  appreciated  and  which  Dante  did  not 
experience.  In  antiquity  love  had  for  form  but 
the  senses.  That  form  chivalry  draped  with 
graces  and  Dante  dematerialized.  In  Petrarch, 
love  was  both  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  spirit  in 
addition  to  being  sincere.  That  was  a  great  step. 
With  him  for  the  first  time  there  entered  into 
history  an  honest  man  ardently  in  love  with  an 
honest  woman.  To  the  superficial  she  has 
seemed  but  a  coquette  and  he  merely  sentimental. 
He  were  perhaps  better  regarded  as  creative, 
the  founder  of  the  real  love  which  is  the  love  of 
the  heart,  the  "amour  eternel  en  un  moment 
coneu." 

The  quality  of  Laura's  love,  whether  she 
loved  him  or  whether  she  did  not,  whether  for 
that  matter  she  was  capable  of  loving  at  all, 
whether  on  the  other  hand  while  loving  him 
wholly  she,  like  the  woman  in  the  sonnet  of 
Arvers  who  inspired  the  "  amour  eternel ' 
preferred  to  remain  "piously  faithful  to  the 
austere  devoir,"  is  immaterial  and  unim- 
portant. Another  man  would  have  abandoned 
her   completely   or   carried    her   violently   away. 


188  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

Petrarch,  too  sincere  for  treason  and  too  poetic 
for  vulgarity,  unfit  in  consequence  for  either 
enterprise,  became  obsessed  with  a  love  that 
developed  into  a  delicate  malady,  a  disease  that 
sent  him  from  his  studies,  tormenting  him  into  an 
incessant  struggle  with  the  most  terrible  of  all 
combatants — one's  self.  The  malady  had  its 
compensations.  It  made  him  the  source  of 
modern  lyricism  and  the  most  conspicuous  figure 
of  his  day.  In  Milan  when  he  appeared  every 
head  was  uncovered.  On  the  P6,  a  battle  was 
interrupted  that  he  might  pass.  At  Venice  his 
seat  was  at  the  right  of  the  doge.  Rome's  ghost 
revived  in  beauty  for  him  and  put  a  laurel  on 
his  brow.  It  was  his  verse  that  induced  these 
tributes.     The  verse  was  inspired  by  love. 

To  Dante,  love  was  what  it  had  been  to  Plato, 
a  mysterious  initiation  into  the  secrets  of  the 
material  world.  To  Petrarch  it  was  a  rebellion 
against  those  very  things.  In  Dante  it  was  sub- 
limated, in  Petrarch  it  was  distilled.  Laura 
stood  at  the  parting  of  the  roads,  midway  between 
the  symbolism  of  the  Divina  Corn-media  and  the 
freedom  of  the  Decamerone. 

The  Decamerone  is  the  chronicle  of  a  society  in 
extremis  of  which  the  Divine  Comedy  is  the  Last 
Judgment.  One  is  the  dirge  of  the  past,  the 
other  the  dawn  of  the  future.  Between  the 
gravity  of  the  one  and  the  unconcern  of  the  other 


THE  APOTHEOSIS  189 

is  the  distance  of  the  poles.  Separated  but  by 
half  a  century  the  cantos  are  the  antipodes  of 
the  novellas.  In  the  former  is  gloom,  palpable 
and  thick.  In  the  latter  is  light,  frivolous  and 
clear.  One  is  mediaeval,  the  other,  modern. 
But  one  was  constructed  for  all  time,  the  other 
for  a  day.  If  the  Decamerone  still  survive,  it 
is  through  one  of  Time's  caprices. 

Boccaccio  wrote  endlessly.  He  produced 
treatises  theological,  historical,  mystical.  With 
his  pen  he  built  a  vast  monument.  Time  passed 
and  in  passing  loosed  from  the  edifice  a  single 
stone.  The  rest  it  reduced  to  dust.  But  that 
stone  it  sent  rolling  into  posterity,  regarding  it, 
wrongly  or  rightly  as  a  masterpiece.  A  master- 
piece is  a  thing  that  seems  easy  to  make  and  which 
no  one  can  duplicate.  The  Queen  of  Navarre 
tried  and  failed  augustly.  Indolent  reviewers 
have  summarized  both  efforts  as  gossip.  Boccac- 
cio's work  was  at  once  that  and  something  else. 
It  was  a  viaticum  for  the  Middle  Ages  and  a 
signal  ior  the  Renaissance. 

Through  Florence  at  that  hour  stalked  the  Black 
Pest.  The  narrow  streets  were  choked  with 
corpses.  The  people  were  dying.  So  too  was 
an  epoch.  While  grave-diggers  were  at  work 
a  page  of  history  was  being  turned.  On  the 
other  side  was  a  dawn  which  now  is  day.  The 
knell  of  expiring  night  Boccaccio  answered  with 


190  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

laughter.  Into  a  shroud  he  tossed  flowers.  Of 
these  many  were  frail,  some  blood-red,  others 
toxic;  a  few  only  were  white.  From  them  come 
the  odors  that  formed  the  moral  atmosphere  of 
indifferent  Italy,  of  careless  France,  of  England 
after  the  Restoration.  They  were  the  parterre 
on  which  gallantry  grew. 


VI 
BLUEBEARD 

Before  the  parterre  of  gallantry  budded, 
at  an  epoch  when  the  Middle  Ages  were  passing 
away,  there  appeared  a  man,  known  to  amateurs 
of  light  opera  and  of  fairy  tales  as  Bluebeard, 
but  who,  everywhere,  save  in  the  nursery  and  the 
study,  has  been  regarded  as  unreal. 

Bluebeard  was  no  more  a  creation  of  Perrault 
or  of  Offenbach  than  Don  Juan  was  a  creation 
of  Mozart  or  of  Moliere.  Both  really  lived,  but 
Bluebeard  the  more  demoniacally.  According 
to  the  documents  contained  in  what  is  technic- 
ally known  as  his  proces,  his  name  was  Gilles 
de  Retz  and,  at  a  period  contemporaneous  with 
the  apparition  of  Jehanne  d'Arc,  he  was  a  great 
Breton  lord,  seigneur  of  appreciable  domains.1 

At  Tiffauges,  one  of  his  seats,  the  towers  of  the 
castle  have  fallen,  the  drawbridge  has  crumbled, 
the  moat  is  choked.  Only  the  walls  remain. 
Within  is  an  odor  of  ruin,  a  sensation  of  chill,  a 
savor  of  things  damned,  an  impression  of  space, 
of  shapes  of  sin,  of  monstrous  crimes,  of 
1  Lobineau :  Histoire  de  Bretagne. 


192  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

sacrilege  and  sorcery.  But  in  his  day  it  proba- 
bly differed  very  little  from  other  keeps  ex- 
cept in  its  extreme  fastidiousness.  Gilles  de 
Retz  was  a  poet.  In  a  land  where  no  one 
read,  he  wrote.  At  a  time  when  the  chief 
relaxation  of  a  baron  was  rapine,  he  preferred 
the  conversation  of  thinkers.  Very  rich  and 
equally  sumptuous,  the  spectacle  which  he 
presented  must  have  been  that  of  a  great  noble 
living  nobly,  one  who,  as  was  usual,  had  his  own 
men-at-arms,  his  own  garrison,  pages,  squires, 
the  customary  right  of  justice  high  and  low,  but, 
over  and  above  these  things,  a  taste  for  elegancies, 
for  refinements,  for  illuminated  missals,  for  the 
music  of  grave  hymns.  He  was  devout.  In 
addition  to  a  garrison,  he  had  a  chapel  and,  for 
it,  almoners,  acolytes,  choristers.  Necessarily 
a  soldier,  he  had  been  a  brave  one.  In  serving 
featly  his  God  he  had  served  loyally  his  king. 
At  the  siege  of  Orleans,  Charles  VII  rewarded 
him  with  the  title  and  position  of  Marechal  de 
France.  It  was  lofty,  but  not  more  so  than  he. 
Meanwhile,  during  the  progress  of  the  war,  for 
which  he  furnished  troops;  subsequently,  in 
extravagant  leisures  at  court;  later,  at  Tiffauges, 
where  he  resided  in  a  manner  entirely  princely, 
he  exhausted  his  resources. 

The  one  modern  avenue  to  wealth  then  open 
was  matrimony.     Gilles  followed  it.     But  insuf- 


BLUEBEARD  193 

ficiently.  The  dower  of  one  lady,  then  of  others, 
however  large,  was  not  enough.  He  needed  more. 
To  get  it  he  took  a  different  route.  Contiguous 
to  the  avenue  was  a  wider  highway  which,  descend- 
ing from  the  remotest  past,  had  at  the  time  nar- 
rowed into  a  blind  alley.  In  it  was  a  cluster  of 
alchemists.  They  were  hunting  the  golden  chi- 
mera which  Hermes  was  believed  to  have  found, 
and  whose  escaping  memories,  first  satraps,  then 
emperors,  had  tried  vainly  to  detain. 

These  memories  Bacon  sought  in  alembics, 
Thomas  Aquinas  in  ink.  Experiments,  not  sim- 
ilar but  cognate,  had  resulted  in  the  theory  that, 
at  that  later  day,  success  was  impossible  without 
the  direct  assistance  of  the  Very  Low.  The  secret 
had  escaped  too  far,  memories  of  it  had  been  too 
long  ablated  to  be  rebeckoned  by  natural  means. 
For  the  recovery  of  the  evaporated  arcana  it  was 
necessary  that  Satan  should  be  invoked.  Satan 
then  was  very  real.  The  atmosphere  was  so 
charged  with  his  legions,  that  spitting  was  an  act 
of  worship.  In  the  cathedrals,  through  shudders 
of  song,  his  voice  had  been  heard  inviting  maidens 
to  swell  the  red  quadrilles  of  hell.  From  encoun- 
tering him  at  every  turn  man  had  become  used  to 
his  ways,  and  had  imagined  a  pact  whereby,  in  ex- 
change for  the  soul,  Satan  agrees  to  furnish  what- 
ever is  wanted. 

To  get  gold,  Gilles  de  Retz  prepared  to  enter 
13 


194  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

into  that  pact.  What  were  the  preliminary  steps, 
more  exactly,  what  were  the  preliminary  thoughts, 
that  led  this  man,  who  had  been  devout  and  a 
poet,  into  the  infamies  which  then  ensued,  is  prob- 
lematic. It  is  the  opinion  of  psychologists  that 
the  most  poignant  excesses  are  induced  by  aspira- 
tions for  superterrestrial  felicities,  by  a  desire,  hu- 
man, and  therefore  pitiable,  to  clutch  some  fringe 
of  the  mantle  of  stars.  Psychologists  may  be 
correct,  but  pathologists  give  these  yearnings 
certain  names,  among  which  is  haematomania, 
or  blood-madness.  Caligula,  Caracalla,  Attila, 
Tamerlane,  Ivan  the  Terrible,  Peter  the  Great, 
Philip  II  had  it.  Complicated  with  another  dis- 
order, it  manifested  itself  in  the  Marquis  de  Sade. 
It  was  that  which  affected  Gilles  de  Retz. 

Actuated  by  it,  he  lured  alchemists  to  Tiffauges. 
With  them  from  the  confines  of  the  Sabbat,  ma- 
gicians came.  Conjointly  it  is  not  improbable 
that  they  succeeded  then  in  really  evoking  Satan, 
whose  response  to  any  summons  consists,  perhaps, 
not  in  a  visible  apparition,  but  in  making  men  as 
base  as  they  have  conceived  him  to  be. 

In  the  horrible  keep  something  of  the  kind  must 
have  occurred.  Gilles  de  Retz  became  actually 
obsessed.  His  soul  turned  a  somersault.  Where 
the  scholar  had  been,  a  vampire  emerged.  Satan 
was  believed  to  enjoy  the  blood  of  the  young.  To 
minister  to  the  taste,  Gilles  killed  boys  and  girls. 


BLUEBEARD  195 

For  fourteen  years  he  stalked  them.  How  many 
he  bagged  is  conjectural.  He  had  omitted  to  keep 
tally. 

His  first  victim  was  a  child  whose  heart  he  ex- 
tracted, and  with  whose  blood  he  wrote  an  invoca- 
tion to  Satan.  Then  the  list  elongated  immeasur- 
ably. That  lair  of  his  echoed  with  cries,  dripped 
with  gore,  shuddered  with  sobs.  The  oubliettes 
were  turned  into  cemeteries,  the  halls  reeked  with 
the  odor  of  burning  bones.  Through  them  the 
monster  prowled,  virtuoso  and  vampire  in  one, 
determining  how  he  might  destroy  not  merely 
bodies  but  souls,  inventing  fresh  repasts  of  flesh, 
devising  new  tortures,  savoring  tears  as  yet  un- 
shed, and,  with  them,  the  spectacle  of  helpless 
agony,  of  unutterable  fear,  the  contortions  of  little 
limbs  simultaneously  subjected  to  hot  irons  and 
cold  steel.  Witnesses  deposed  that  some  of  the 
children  cried  very  little,  but  that  the  color 
passed  from  their  eyes.1 

There  is  a  limit  to  all  things  earthly.  Precisely 
as  no  one  may  attain  perfection,  so  has  infamy  its 
bounds.  There  are  depths  beneath  which  there 
is  nothing.  To  their  ultimate  plane  Gilles  de 
Retz  descended.  There,  smitten  with  terror,  he 
tried  to  grope  back.  It  was  too  late.  Leisurely, 
after  fourteen  years  of  Molochism,  the  echo  of 
the  cries  and  odor  of  the  calcinated  reached 
1Manuscrit  d<-  la  Bibl.  nationale,  No.  493,  F. 


196  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

Nantes,  with,  for  result,  the  besieging  of  Tiffauges, 
the  taking  of  Gilles,  his  arrest,  trial,  confession — 
a  confession  so  monstrous  that  women  fainted  of 
fright,  while  a  priest,  rising  in  horror,  veiled  the 
face  on  a  crucifix  which  hung  from  the  wall — 
a  confession  followed  by  excommunication  and 
the  stake.1 

In  this  super-Neronian  story  Bluebeard  is  not 
apparent.  Yet  he  is  there.  It  is  he  that  is  Gilles 
de  Retz.  Years  ago  at  Morbihan  in  a  Breton 
church  that  dates  from  the  fourteenth  century, 
there  was  found  a  series  of  paintings.  One  rep- 
resents the  marriage  of  Trophine,  daughter  of  the 
Due  de  Yannes  to  a  Breton  lord.  In  another  the 
lord  is  leaving  his  castle.  As  he  goes  he  warn- 
ingly  intrusts  to  his  wife  the  key  to  a  forbidden 
door.  It  is  spotted  with  blood.  The  scenes 
which  follow  represent  the  lady  opening  the  for- 
bidden door  and  peering  into  a  room  from  the 
rafters  of  which  six  women  hang.  Then  come 
the  return  of  the  lord,  his  questioning  and  menac- 
ing glance,  the  tears  of  the  lady,  her  prayers  to 
her  sister,  the  alarm  given  by  the  latter,  the 
irruption  of  her  brothers  and  her  rescue  from 
that  room. 

The  story  which  the  paintings  tell  still  endures 
in  Brittany.  It  has  Gilles  de  Retz  for  villain. 
Yet  for  the  honor  of  his  race  and  of  the  land,  in- 
^altus:    The  Pomps  of  Satan. 


BLUEBEARD  197 

stead  of  his  name  that  of  Bluebart,  the  cognomen 
of  a  public  enemy,  was  given.1 

In  the  story,  Gillcs  de  Retz,  after  marrying 
Catherine  de  Thouars,  one  of  the  great  heiresses 
of  the  day,  subsequently  and  successively  married 
six  other  women.  Whether  he  murdered  them 
all  or  whether  they  died  of  delight  is  not  histori- 
cally certain.  The  key  spotted  with  blood  obvi- 
ously is  fancy.  But  like  other  fancies  it  might  be 
truth.  It  symbolizes  the  eternal  curiosity  of  the 
eternal  Eve  concerning  that  which  has  been  for- 
bidden. 

1  Michelet :  Hist,  de  France. 


VII 
THE    RENAISSANCE 

Nominally  with  Bluebeard  the  Middle  Ages 
cease.  In  the  parturitions  of  that  curious  period 
order  emerged  from  chaos,  language  from  dialects, 
nations  from  hordes,  ideals  from  dirt.  Medieval- 
ism was  the  prelude,  mediocre  and  in  minor  key, 
to  the  great  concert  of  civilization  of  which  the 
first  chorus  was  the  Renaissance,  the  second  the 
Reformation,  the  third  the  Revolution,  and  of 
which  Democracy,  the  fourth,  but  presumably 
not  the  last,  is  swelling  now. 

Meanwhile  the  world  was  haggard.  The  moral 
pendulum,  that  had  oscillated  between  mud  and 
ether,  was  back  again  at  the  starting  point.  Death, 
Fortune,  Love,  the  three  blind  fates  of  life,  were 
the  only  recognized  divinities.  But  beyond  the 
monotonous  fog  that  discolored  the  sky  beauty 
was  waiting.  With  the  fall  of  Constantinople  it 
descended.  The  result  was  the  Renaissance.  To 
the  Renaissance  many  contributed;  mainly  the 
dead,  the  artists  of  the  past,  but  also  the  living, 
the  prophets  of  the  future.     Medievalism  was  a 


THE   RENAISSANCE  109 

forgetting,  the  Renaissance  a  recovery.  1 1  was 
an  epoch  from  which  the  mediocre,  in  departing, 
saw  as  it  went  the  re-establishment  of  altars  to 
beauty.  In  the  midst  of  feudal  barbarism,  at  an 
hour  w'hen  France  was  squalid,  Germany  uncouth, 
when  English  nobles  could  barely  read,  when 
Europe  generally  had  a  contempt  for  letters  which 
was  not  due  to  any  familiarity  with  them,  but 
when  Italy — a  century  in  advance  of  other  lands 
— was  merely  corrupt,  at  that  hour,  the  wraiths 
of  Greece  mingling  with  the  ghosts  of  Rome, 
made  the  mistress  of  the  old  world  sovereign  of 
the  new.  Not  in  might  but  in  art  and  intellect, 
again  the  Eternal  City  ruled  supreme. 

From  the  annals  of  the  epoch  bravi  peer  and 
swarm — soldati  di  gran  diavolo,  men  more  fiendish 
than  animal,  artists  that  contrived  to  drape  the 
abominable  with  cloths  which,  if  crimson,  were 
also  of  gold;  poets  refined  by  generations  of 
scrupulous  polish  but  disorganized  by  a  form  of 
corruption  that  was  the  more  unholy  in  that  it 
proceeded  not  from  the  senses  but  the  mind. 

For  centuries  luxury  had  been  reaccumulating 
about  them.  To  it,  after  the  fall  of  Byzance,  an 
unterrified  spirit  of  beauty  came.  In  between 
was  a  sense  of  equality,  one  that  a  recently  dis- 
covered hemisphere  was  to  assimilate,  but  which 
meanwhile  enabled  a  man  of  brains  to  rise  from 
nowhere    to    anything,    permitting    a    mercer    to 


200  HISTORIA    AMORIS 

breed  popes  and  an  apothecary  Lorenzo  the  Mag- 
nificent. These  factors,  generally  unconsidered, 
induced  a  tone  that  could  change  instantly  from 
the  suave  to  the  tragic,  the  tone  of  a  people  that 
had  no  beliefs  except  in  genius  and  no  prejudices 
except  against  stupidity,  a  tone  ethically  nul  and 
intellectually  great,  the  only  imaginable  one  that 
could  produce  combinations  artistic  and  viperish 
as  the  Borgias,  aesthetic  and  vulperine  as  the 
Medici.  Monsters  such  as  they,  did  not  astonish. 
Columbus,  in  enlarging  the  earth,  and  Coperni- 
cus in  unveiling  the  skies,  had  so  astounded  that 
the  ability  to  be  surprised  was  lost.  Men  could 
only  admire  and  create. 

These  occupations  were  not  hindered  by  the 
pontiffs.  What  the  latter  were,  diarists  and  his- 
torians— Infessura  and  Gregorovius — have  told. 
As  their  pages  turn,  pagan  Rome  revives. 
The  splendid  palaces  had  crumbled,  the  su- 
perb porticoes  were  dust.  The  victorious  eagles 
of  the  victorious  legions  had  flown  to  their  eyries 
forever.  The  shouting  throngs,  the  ivory 
chariots,  the  baths  of  perfume  and  of  blood, 
these  things  long  since  had  vanished.  There 
were  friars  where  gladiators  had  been,  pifferari 
in  lieu  of  augurs,  imperias  instead  of  vestals, 
in  place  of  an  emperor  there  was  a  pope.  In  de- 
tails of  speech,  costume  and  mode  there  were 
further    differences.     Otherwise    Rome    was    as 


THE   RENAISSANCE  201 

pagan,  murderous  and  gay.  In  the  thick  air  of 
the  high-viced  city  the  poison  of  the  antique 
purple  dripped. 

But  into  the  toxic  a  new  ingredient  had  entered, 
a  fresh  element,  a  modern  note.  In  the  Rome  of 
Nero  a  sin  was  a  prayer.  In  the  Rome  of  Leo  X 
it  was  a  taxable  luxury.  Anything,  no  matter 
what,  was  lawful  provided  an  indulgence  were 
bought.  The  Bank  of  Pardons  was  established 
for  the  obvious  proceeds,  but  the  latter  were 
sanctified  by  their  consecration  to  art.  Among 
the  results  is  St.  Peter's. 

It  was  in  a  very  different  light  that  Luther  con- 
templated them.  The  true  founder  of  modern 
society,  radical  as  innovators  must  be,  dangerous 
as  reformers  are,  it  was  with  actual  fury  that  he 
attacked  the  sale,  attacked  confession,  the  entire 
doctrine  of  original  sin.  The  hysteria  of  asceti- 
cism was  as  inept  to  him  as  the  celibacy  of  the 
priesthood;  love  he  declared  to  be  no  less  neces- 
sary than  food  and  he  preached  to  men,  saying, 
"If  women  are  recalcitrant,  tell  them  others  will 
consent ;   if  Vashti  refuse,  let  Esther  approach."  1 

Beauty,  emerging  meanwhile  from  her  secular 
tomb,  had  uttered  a  new  Fiat  Lux.  Spontane- 
ously as  the  first  creation  there  resulted  another 
in  which  art  became  an  object  of  worship.  Sud- 
denly, miraculously  yet  naturally,  there  sprang  in- 
1  Luther:  Tisch-Reden. 


202  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

to  being  a  race  of  sculptors  inferior  only  to  Pheid- 
ias,  a  race  of  painters  superior  even  to  Apelles, 
real  artists  who  were  great  men  in  an  epoch  really 
great.  It  was  said  of  Raphael  that  he  had  resus- 
citated the  corpse  of  Rome.  Benvenuto  Cellini 
was  absolved  of  a  murder  by  Paul  III  on  the 
ground  that  men  like  him  were  above  the  law. 
Julius  II  launched  anathemas  at  any  sovereign 
who  presumed,  however  briefly,  to  lure  from  him 
Michel  Angelo.  Charles  V,  ruler  of  a  realm  wider 
than  Alexander's,  stooped  and  restored  a  brush 
which  Titian  had  dropped,  remarking  as  he  did 
so,  that  only  by  an  emperor  could  an  artist 
be  properly  served. 

The  epoch  in  which  appeared  these  exceptional 
beings  and  with  them  lettered  bandits  comparable 
only  to  tigers  in  the  gardens  of  Armide — the  age 
which  produced  in  addition  to  them,  others  equally, 
if  differently,  great,  approached  in  its  rare  bril- 
liance that  of  Pericles.     Even  Plato  was  there. 

"Since  God  has  given  us  the  Papacy,"  said 
Leo  X,  "  let  us  enjoy  it."  In  the  enjoyment  he 
had  Plato  for  aid.  An  estray  from  Byzance, 
tossed  thence  on  the  shores  of  the  mediaeval  Dead 
Sea,  translated  in  the  Florentine  Academy,  printed 
in  the  Venetian  metropolis  of  pleasure  and  dedi- 
cated to  the  scholar  pope,  no  better  aid  to  enjoy- 
ment could  he  or  any  one  have  had.  In  the  mys- 
tic incense  of  the  liturgy  to  Aphrodite  was  what 


THE  RENAISSANCE  203 

prelates  and  patricians,  the  people  and  the  planet 
long  had  needed,  a  doctrine  of  love. 

In  the  Republic  Plato  stated  that  those  who 
contemplate  the  immutable  essence  of  things 
possess  knowledge  not  views.  That  was  pre- 
cisely what  was  wanted.  But  what  was  wanted 
Plato  did  not  perhaps  very  adequately  supply. 
Hitherto  love  had  been  regarded  sometimes  as  the 
fusion  of  souls  sometimes  as  that  of  the  senses. 
There  had  been  asceticism.  There  had  also  been 
license.  Plato,  from  whom  something  more  novel 
was  wanted,  seemed  to  offer  but  an  antidote  to 
both.  In  the  Symposion  love  was  represented 
as  the  rather  vulgar  instinct  of  persistence  and 
beauty,  one  and  indivisible,  alone  divine.  More- 
over, from  the  austere  regions  of  that  abstraction 
came  no  explanation  of  the  charm  which  feminine 
loveliness  exercises  over  man.  On  the  other  hand, 
Plato  had  told  of  two  Aphrodites,  one  celestial, 
the  other  common,  a  distinction  which  doctors  in 
quintessences  utilized  for  the  display  of  two  forms 
of  love,  one  heavenly,  the  other  mundane,  simian- 
izing  in  so  doing,  what  is  human,  humanizing  that 
which  is  divine  and  succeeding  between  them  in 
producing  for  the  world  the  modern  conception 
of  platonic  affection,  which,  in  so  far  as  it  relates 
to  the  reciprocal  relations  of  men  and  women,  not 
for  a  moment  had  entered  Plato's  sky-like  mind. 

The   doctors   were  Ficino — a   Hellenist   whom 


204  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

Cosmo  dei  Medici  had  had  trained  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  translating  Plato — and  Bembo,  a  prel- 
ate, who  already  had  written  for  Lucrezia  Borgia 
a  treatise  on  love.  What  Ficino  advanced  Bembo 
expounded. 

Bembo's  commentary  was  to  the  effect  that 
earthly  loveliness  is  a  projection  of  celestial  beauty 
irradiated  throughout  creation.  Falling  as  light 
falls  it  penetrates  the  soul  and  repercuted  creates 
love,  which  consequently  is  a  derivative  of  divine 
beauty  transmitted  through  a  woman's  eyes.  To 
man  the  source  of  that  beauty  is,  however,  not  the 
soul  but  the  flesh.  From  this  error  disillusion 
proceeds.  For  the  rightful  enjoyment  of  beauty 
cannot  consist  in  material  satisfaction  from  which 
satiety,  weariness,  and  aversion  result,  but  rather 
in  disinterestedness,  which  is  the  chief  factor  in 
abiding  delight.1 

The  theory,  casuistic  and  subtle,  appealed  mo- 
mentarily to  a  society  that  had  no  theories  at  all. 
It  particularly  appealed  to  women.  Matrimony 
had  not  always  been  propitious  to  them.  Bar- 
ring death  or  annulment  the  brand  of  the  cere- 
mony was  ineffaceable.  In  England  Henry  VIII 
maintained  the  brand  but,  by  means  of  divorce 
which  he  prescribed  for  himself,  he  rendered  it 
cumulative,  a  process  which  Parliament,  subse- 

1  Castiglione :  U  Cortegiano.  Ficino:  II  eomento  sopra 
il  convito." 


THE   RENAISSANCE  205 

quently  petitioned  by  Milton,  regularized.  In 
Italy  meanwhile  the  pseudo-platonism  which 
Ficino  and  Bembo  were  expounding,  omitted  any 
interference  with  it.  In  the  corpus  juris  amoris 
matrimony  was  held  to  be  incompatible  with 
love  and  pseudo-platonism,  going  a  step  further, 
eliminated  even  the  possibility  of  it.  Pseudo- 
platonism  maintained  that  if  happiness  consists 
in  love  and  love  consists  in  yielding,  yielding  itself 
has  its  degrees.  There  is  the  yielding  of  the  body 
and  of  the  soul,  the  yielding  of  the  one  without 
the  other,  the  yielding  of  the  second  without  the 
first.  Platonism,  as  interpreted  by  pseudo-pla- 
tonists,  was  the  yielding  of  the  second,  matrimony 
the  yielding  of  the  first.  But  into  that  yielding  it 
had  already  shown  that  not  delight  but  its  con- 
trary enters. 

On  fanciful  tenets  such  as  these  the  moral 
bigamy  of  Provence  returned,  with  the  difference 
that  it  enabled  a  lady  to  be  as  intangible  to  her 
husband  as  she  had  supposedly  been  to  her  knight. 
A  historian  has  related  that  a  woman  of  position, 
married  to  a  man  morally  inferior  and  otherwise 
objectionable,  encountered  these  tenets  and  coin- 
cidentally,  in  a  person  of  greater  distinction,  en- 
countered also  her  ideal.  Together,  in  the  most 
perfect  propriety,  they  departed  and,  with  analo- 
gous couples  of  their  acquaintance,  assembled  in 
a  villa  where,   reversing    the    Decamerone,  they 


206  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

philosophized  agreeably  on  the  charm  of  the  new 
distinction  between  love  and  love,  one  of  which, 
the  love  matrimonial,  was  worldly  and  mortal 
while  the  other,  vivifying  to  the  soul,  was  divine.1 

Thereafter  spiritual  elopements  became  fre- 
quent. But  not  general.  It  was  not  every 
woman  that  was  capable  of  putting  but  her  soul 
in  the  arms  of  a  lover  nor  was  it  every  lover  whom 
the  ethereality  of  the  proceeding  pleased.  Dilet- 
tantes of  crystal  flirtations  became,  like  poets,  om- 
nipresent and  yet  rare.  The  majority  that  entered 
the  mazes  of  the  immaterial  did  so  with  no  other 
object  than  that  of  getting  out.  When  one  of  the 
parties  did  not  lose  her  head  the  other  lost  his 
temper. 

La  Bruyere  had  not  then  come,  but  there  are 
maxims  which  do  not  need  expression  to  be  ap- 
preciated and  then  as  since  men  contended  that 
when  a  woman's  heart  remained  unresponsive  it 
was  because  she  had  not  met  the  one  who  could 
make  it  beat.  Others,  less  finely,  insisted  that  a 
woman  who  could  love  and  would  not  should  be 
made  to.  Love  then  had  its  martyrs,  platonism 
its  agnostics.  That,  though,  was  perhaps  inevi- 
table. Platonism,  whether  real  or  imaginary,  has 
always  been  less  a  theory  than  a  melody;  as  such 
unsuited  to  every  voice.  But  at  the  time  it  was 
serviceable.  It  deodorized,  however  partially,  an 
1  Firenzuola:   Ragionamenti. 


THE   RENAISSANCE  207 

atmosphere  supercharged  with  pagan  airs.  It 
turned  some  women  into  saints,  others  into  sisters 
of  charity  that  penetrated  the  poverties  of  the 
heart  and  distributed  there  the  fragrance  of  a 
divine  largesse.  In  that  was  its  beauty  and  also 
its  defect.  Being  in  its  essence  poetic,  it  could 
appeal  only  to  epicures.  To  mere  kings  like 
Henry  VIII,  to  felons  like  Henri  III,  to  the  vul- 
gar generally,  to  people  incapable  of  sentiment 
and  eager  only  for  sensations,  as  the  vulgar  always 
are,  it  was  Greek,  unapproachable  when  not  un- 
known. There  were  virtuose  that  drew  from  it 
delicious  accords,  there  were  others  that  with  it 
executed  amazing  pas  seuls.  Otherwise  its  ex- 
ponents in  attempting  to  convert  life  into  a  fancy 
ball  and  love  in  a  battle  of  flowers  failed  neces- 
sarily. The  flowers  wilted,  the  dancers  departed, 
the  music  ceased.  The  moral  pendulum  swung 
again  from  ether  to  earth. 

In  the  downward  trend  Venice  perhaps  assisted. 
Venice  then  was  a  salon  floored  with  mosaics 
where  Europe  and  Asia  met.  Suspended  between 
earth  and  sky,  unique  in  construction,  orientally 
corrupt,  byzantinely  fair,  a  labyrinth  of  liquid 
streets  and  porphyry  palaces  in  which  master- 
pieces felt  at  ease,  it  was  the  ideal  city  of  the 
material  world,  a  magnet  of  such  attraction  that 
the  hierodules  of  the  renaissant  Aphrodite, 
whose   presence    Rome   had   found    undesirable, 


208  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

made  it  their  home.  Qualified,  naively,  perhaps, 
but  with  much  courtesy,  as  Benemeritse,  they 
exercised  a  sway  which  history  has  not  forgotten 
and  became  the  renegades  of  pseudo-platonic 
love.  To  enjoy  their  society,  to  sup  for  instance 
with  the  bella  Imperia,  whose  blinding  beauty  is 
legendary  still,  or  with  Tullia  d'Aragona,  who 
had  written  a  tract  of  the  "  Infinity  of  Perfect 
Love,"  princes  came  and  lingered  enchanted  by 
their  meretricious  charm. 

Platonism  had  its  renegades  but  it  had  also 
its  saints — Leonora  d'Este,  Vittoria  Colonna, 
Marguerite  of  France,  the  three  Graces  of  the 
Renaissance. 

Marguerite  of  France,  surnamed  the  Mar- 
guerite des  Marguerites,  was  a  flower  that  had 
grown  miraculously  among  the  impurities  of 
the  Valois  weeds.  Slightly  married  to  a  Due 
d' Alencon  and,  at  his  death,  as  slightly  to  a  King 
of  Navarre,  she  held  at  Pau  a  little  court  where, 
Marot,  her  poet  and  lackey,  perhaps  aiding,  she 
produced  the  Heptameron,  a  collection  of  nou- 
velles  modelled  after  the  Decamerone,  a  bundle 
of  stories  in  which  the  characters  discuss  this 
and  that,  but  mainly  love,  particularly  the  love 
of  women  "qui  n'ont  cherche  nulle  fin  que 
l'honnestete." 

Honnestete  was  what  Marguerite  also  sought. 
In  days  very  dissolute,  a  sense  of  exclusiveness 


THE   RENAISSANCE  209 

which  whether  natural  or  acquired  is  the  most 
refining  of  all,  suggested,  it  may  be,  her  device: 
— Non  inferiora  secutus.  She  would  have  nothing 
inferior.  One  might  know  it  from  her  portraits 
which  bear  an  evident  stamp  of  reserve.  In 
them  she  has  the  air  of  a  great  lady  occupied 
only  with  noble  things.  All  other  things,  hus- 
bands included,  were  to  her  merely  abject. 

The  impression  which  her  portraits  provide 
is  not  reflected  in  the  phraseology  of  the  Hepta- 
meron.  The  fault  was  not  hers.  She  used  the 
current  idiom.  Prelates  at  the  time  employed 
in  the  pulpit  expressions  which  to-day  a  coster 
would  avoid.  Terms  that  are  usual  in  one  age 
become  coarse  in  the  next.  But,  if  her  language 
was  rude,  her  sentiments  were  elevated.  In  her 
life  she  loved  but  once  and  then,  idolatrously. 
The  object  was  her  brother,  the  very  mundane 
Francois  Ier,  who,  on  a  window-pane  wrote 
with  a  diamond — the  proper  pen  for  a  king — 
Toute  femme  varie,  an  adage  to  which  legend 
added  Bien  fol  est  qui  s'y  fye  and  Shakespeare 
variously  adapted. 

Neither  the  adage  nor  its  supplements  applied 
to  Marguerite.  The  two  loves  of  pseudo-plat- 
onism  she  disentangled  from  their  subtleties  and, 
with  entire  simplicity,  called  one  good,  the  other 
evil.  Hers  was  the  former.  She  was  born  for 
it,  said  Rabelais. 
14 


210  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

In  the  Heptameron  it  is  written :  "  Perfect 
lovers  are  they  who  seek  the  perfection  of  beauty, 
nobility  and  grace  and  who.  had  they  to  choose 
between  dying  and  offending,  would  refuse 
whatever  honor  and  conscience  reprove." 

There  is  the  Non  inferiora  secutus  expounded. 
The  device  may  have  appealed  to  Leonora  d'Este. 
Tasso  said  that  when  he  was  born  his  soul  was 
drunk  with  love.  Leonora  intoxicated  it  further. 
Of  a  type  less  accentuated  than  Marguerite  she 
was  not  more  feminine  but  more  gracious.  At 
Ferrara,  in  the  wide  leisures  of  her  brother's 
court,  Tasso,  Stundenlang,  as  Goethe  wrote, 
sat  with  her. 

"Vita  della  mia  vita,"  he  called  her  in  the 
easy  rime  amorose  with  which  in  saluting  her  he 
saluted  the  past,  Dante  and  Petrarch,  and 
saluted  too  the  future,  preluding  behind  the  cen- 
turies the  arias  wherewith  Cimarosa,  Rossini  and 
Bellini  were  to  enchant  the  world.  A  true  poet 
and  a  great  one,  Byron  said  of  him: 

Victor  unsurpassed  in  modern  song 

Each  year  brings  forth  its  millions  but  how  long 

The  tide  of  generations  shall  roll  on 

And  not  the  whole  combined  and  countless  throng 

Compose  a  mind  like  thine  ? 

The  treasures  of  that  mind  he  poured  at  Leo- 
nora's feet.  The  cascade  enraptured  her  and 
Italy.     Rome    that    for  Petrarch   had    recovered 


THE  RENAISSANCE  211 

the  old  crown  of  pagan  laurel  saw  there  another 
brow  on  which  it  might  be  placed.  Before  that 
supreme  honor  came  Leonora  died  and  Tasso, 
who  for  fifteen  years  had  served  her,  was  insane. 

Beauty  may  be  degraded,  it  cannot  be  vul- 
garized. With  the  beauty  of  thtir  lives  and  love, 
time  has  tampered  but  without  marring  the  per- 
fection of  which  both  were  made  and  to  which 
at  the  time  the  love  of  Vittoria  Colonna  and 
Michel  Angelo  alone  is  comparable. 

Michel  Angelo,  named  after  the  angel  of  justice, 
as  Raphael  was  after  the  angel  of  grace,  separated 
himself  from  all  that  was  not  papal  and  mar- 
morean.  Only  Leonardo  da  Vinci  who  had  gone 
and  Ludwig  of  Bavaria  who  had  not  come,  the 
one  a  painter,  the  other  a  king,  but  both  poets 
were  as  isolating  as  he.  He  was  disfigured. 
Because  of  that  he  made  a  solitude  and  peopled 
it  grandiosely  with  the  grandeur  of  the  genius 
that  was  his,  displaying  in  whatever  he  created 
that  of  which  art  had  hitherto  been  unconscious, 
the  sovereignty  not  of  beauty  only  but  of  right. 

Balzac  wrote  abundantly  to  prove  the  influence 
that  names  have  on  their  possessors.  In  the 
curious  prevision  that  gave  Michel  Angelo  his 
name  there  was  an  ideal.  He  followed  it.  It 
led  him  to  another.  There  he  knelt  before 
Vittoria  Colonna  who  represented  the  soul  of  the 
Renaissance  as  he  did  the  conscience.     The  love 


212  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

that  thereafter  subsisted  between  them  was,  if 
not  perfect,  then  almost  as  perfect  as  human 
love  can  be;  a  love  neither  sentimental  nor  sen- 
sual but  gravely  austere  as  true  beauty  ever  is. 

Since  the  days  of  Helen,  love  had  been  ascend- 
ing. Sometimes  it  fell.  Occasionally  it  lost  its 
way.  There  were  seasons  when  it  passed  from 
sight.  But  always  the  ascent  was  resumed. 
With  Michel  Angelo  and  Vittoria  Colonna  it 
reached  a  summit  beyond  which  for  centuries 
it  could  not  go.  In  the  interim  there  were  other 
seasons  in  which  it  passed  from  sight.  Mean- 
while like  Beauty  in  the  mediaeval  night  it  waited. 
From  Marguerite  of  France  it  had  taken  a  device : 
— Non  inferiora  secutus. 


VIII 
LOVE  IN  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  modern  history  of  love  opens  with  laughter, 
the  rich  faunesquc  laugh  of  Francois  Ier.  In 
Italy  he  had  lost,  as  he  expressed  it,  everything — 
fors  Thonneur.  For  his  consolation  he  found 
there  gallantry,  which  Montesquieu  defined  as 
love's  light,  delicate  and  perpetual  lie. 

Platonism  is  the  melody  of  love;  gallantry  the 
parody.  Platonism  beautifies  virtue,  gallantry 
embellishes  vice.  It  makes  it  a  marquis,  gives 
it  brilliance  and  brio.  However  it  omit  to 
spiritualize  it  does  not  degrade.  Moreover  it 
improves  manners.  Gallantry  was  the  direct 
cause  of  the  French  Revolution.  The  people 
bled  to  death  to  defray  the  amours  of  the  great 
sent  in  their  bill.  Love  in  whatever  shape  it 
may  appear  is  always  educational. 

Hugo  said  that  the  French  Revolution  poured  on 
earth  the  floods  of  civilization.  Mignct  said  that 
it  established  a  new  conception  of  things.  Both 
remarks  apply  to  love.  But  before  it  disappeared 
behind  masks,  patches,  falbalas  and  the  guillo- 
tine,   to    reappear    in  the  more    or    less   honest 


214  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

frankness  which  is  its  Anglo-Saxon  garb  to-day, 
there  were  several  costumes  in  its  wardrobe. 

In  Germany,  and  in  the  North  generally,  the 
least  becoming  fashions  of  the  Middle  Ages  were 
still  in  vogue.  In  Spain  was  the  constant  man- 
tilla. Originally  it  was  white.  The  smoke  of 
the  auto-da-fe  had,  in  blackening  it,  put  a  morbid 
touch  of  hysteria  beneath.  In  France,  a  brief 
bucolic  skirt,  that  of  Amaryllis,  was  succeeded 
by  the  pretentious  robes  of  Rambouillet.  In 
England,  the  Elizabethan  ruff,  rigid  and  immac- 
ulate— when  seen  from  a  distance — was  followed 
by  the  yielding  Stuart  lace.  Across  the  sea 
fresher  modes  were  developing  in  what  is  now 
the  land  of  Mille  Amours. 

In  Italy  at  the  moment,  gallantry  was  the 
fashion.  Francois  Ier  adopted  it  and  with  it 
splendor,  the  magnificence  that  goes  to  the  making 
of  a  monarch's  pomp.  In  France  hitherto  every 
castle  had  been  a  court  than  which  that  of  the 
king  was  not  necessarily  superior.  Francois  Ier 
was  the  first  of  French  kings  to  make  his  court 
first  of  all  courts,  a  place  of  art,  luxury,  constant 
display.  It  became  a  magnet  that  drew  the 
nobility  from  their  stupid  keeps,  detaining  them, 
when  young,  with  adventure;  when  old,  with 
office,  providing,  meanwhile,  for  the  beauty  of 
women  a  proper  frame.  Already  at  a  garden 
party  held  on  a  field  of  golden  cloth  the  first 


LOVE  IN  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     215 

Francis  of  France  had  shown  the  eighth  Henry 
of  England  how  a  king  could  shine.  He  was 
dreaming  then  of  empire.  The  illusion,  looted 
at  Pavia,  hovered  over  Fontainebleau  and  Cham- 
bord,  royal  residences  which,  Italian  artists 
aiding,  he  then  constructed  and  where,  though 
not  emperor,  for  a  while  he  seemed  to  be. 

Elsewhere,  in  Paris,  in  his  maison  des  menus 
plaisirs — a  house  in  the  rue  de  l'Hirondelle — the 
walls  were  decorated  with  salamanders — the 
fabulous  emblems  of  inextinguishable  loves;  or 
else  with  hearts,  which,  set  between  alphas  and 
omegas,  indicated  the  beginning  and  the  end  of 
earthly  aims.  The  loves  and  hearts  were  very 
many,  as  multiple  as  those  of  Solomon.  Except 
by  Brantome  not  one  of  them  was  compromised. 
Francois  Ier  was  the  loyal  protector  of  what  he 
called  l'honneur  des  dames,  an  honor  which 
thereafter  it  was  accounted  an  honor  to  abrogate 
for  the  king.1 

"If,"  said  Sauval,  "the  seraglio  of  Henri  II 
was  not  as  wide  as  that  of  Francois  I",  his  court 
was  not  less  elegant." 

The  court  at  that  time  had  succumbed  to  the 
refinements  of  Italy.  Women  who  previously 
were  not  remarkable  for  fastidiousness,  had, 
Brantome   noted,   acquired   so  many  elegancies, 

1  Sauval :  Memoires  Historiques  concernant  les  amours 
des  rois  de  France. 


21 G  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

such  fine  garments  and  beautiful  graces  that 
they  were  more  delectable  than  those  of  any 
other  land.  Brantome  added  that  if  Henri  II 
loved  them,  at  least  he  loved  but  one. 

That  one  was  Dianne  de  Poy tiers.  Brantome 
suspected  her  of  being  a  magician,  of  using 
potable  gold.  At  the  age  of  seventy  she  was, 
he  said,  "  aussy  fraische  et  aussy  aymable  comme 
en  l'aage  de  trente  ans."  Hence  the  suspicion, 
otherwise  justified.  In  France  among  queens — 
de  la  main  gauche — she  had  in  charm  but  one 
predecessor,  Agnes  Sorel,  and  but  one  superior, 
La  Valliere.  The  legendary  love  which  that 
charm  inspired  in  Henri  II  had  in  it  a  trou- 
badourian  parade  and  a  chivalresque  effacement. 
In  its  fervor  there  was  devotion,  in  its  passion 
there  was  poetry,  there  was  humility  in  its  strength. 
At  the  Louvre,  at  Fontainebleau,  on  the  walls 
without,  in  the  halls  within,  on  the  cornices  of 
the  windows,  on  the  panels  of  the  doors,  in  the 
apartments  of  Henri's  wife,  Catherine  de'  Medici, 
everywhere,  the  initials  D  and  H,  interlaced, 
were  blazoned.  Dianne  had  taken  for  device  a 
crescent.  It  never  set.  No  other  star  eclipsed 
it.  When  she  was  sixty  her  colors  were  still 
worn  by  the  king  who  in  absence  wrote  to  her 
languorously : 

Madame  ma  mye,  je  vous  suplye  avoir  souvenance  de 
celuy  quy  n'a  jamais  connu  que  ung  Dyeu  et  une  amye,  et 


LOVE  IN  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     217 

vous  assurer  que  n  aurez  poynt  de  honte  de  m'avoyr  donne 
le  nom  de  serviteur,  lequel  je  vous  suplye  de  me  conserver 
pour  james.1 

Dianne  too  had  but  ung  Dyeu  et  un  amy — one 
God  and  one  friend.  It  was  not  the  king.  More 
exactly  it  was  a  king  greater  than  he.  This 
woman  who  fascinated  everybody  even  to  Henri's 
vampire-wife  was,  financially,  insatiable.  The 
exactions  of  the  Pompadour  and  the  exigencies  of 
the  Du  Barry  were  trumpery  beside  the  avidity 
with  which  she  absorbed  castles,  duchies,  pro- 
vinces, compelling  her  serviteur  to  grant  her  all 
the  vacant  territories  of  the  realm — a  fourth  of 
the  kingdom.  At  his  death,  beautiful  still, 
"aussy  fraische  et  aussy  belle  que  jamais,"  she 
retreated  to  her  domain,  slowly,  royally,  burdened 
with  the  spoils  of  France. 

Brantome  was  right.  She  did  drink  gold. 
She  was  an  enchantress.  She  was  also  a  prece- 
dent for  women  who  in  default  of  royal  provinces 
for  themselves  got  royal  dukedoms  for  their 
children. 

By  comparison  Catherine  de'  Medici  is  spectral. 
In  her  train  were  perfumes  that  were  poisons  and 
with  them  what  was  known  as  moeurs  italiennes, 
customs  that  exceeded  anything  in  Suetonius 
and  with  which  came  hybrid-faced  youths  whose 
filiation     extended     far     back     through     Rome, 

1  Guiffrey:  Letlres  iuedites. 


218  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

through  Greece,  to  the  early  Orient  and  who, 
under  the  Valois,  were  mignons  du  roi.  Apart 
from  them  the  atmosphere  of  the  queen  had  in  it 
corruption  of  decay,  an  odor  of  death  from  which 
Henri  II  recoiled  as  from  a  serpent,  issued,  said 
Michelet,  from  Italy's  tomb.  Cold  as  the  blood 
of  the  defunct,  at  once  sinister  and  magnificent, 
committing  crimes  that  had  in  them  the  grandeur 
of  real  majesty,  the  accomplice  if  not  the  instigator 
of  the  Hugenot  massacre,  Satan  gave  her  four 
children: — Francois  II,  the  gangrened  husband 
of  Mary  Stuart;  Charles  IX,  the  maniac  of  St. 
Bartholomew;  Henri  III  who,  pomp  deducted, 
was  Heliogabalus  in  his  quality  of  Imperatrix, 
and  the  Reine  Margot,  wife  of  Henri  IV. 

It  would  have  been  interesting  to  have  seen  that 
couple,  gallant,  inconstant,  memorable,  popular, 
both,  to  employ  a  Gallicism,  franchement  pail- 
lards.  But  it  would  have  been  curious  to  have 
seen  Margot,  as  a  historian  described  her,  carry- 
ing about  a  great  apron  with  pockets  all  around  it, 
in  each  of  which  was  a  gold  box  and  in  each  box, 
the  embalmed  heart  of  a  lover — memorabilia  of 
faces  and  fancies  that  hung,  by  night,  at  her  bed.1 

"All  the  world  published  her  as  a  goddess," 

another    historian    declared,    "and    thence    she 

took  pleasure  all  her  life  in  being  called  Venus 

•Ur&nia,  as  much  to  show  that  she  participated 

1  IVJilemant  des  Reaux:    Historiettes. 


LOVE  IN  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     219 

in  divinity  as  to  distinguish  her  love  from  that 
of  the  vulgar,  for  she  had  a  higher  idea  of  it  than 
most  women  have.  She  affected  to  hold  that  it 
is  better  practised  in  the  spirit  than  in  the  flesh, 
and  ordinarily  had  this  saying  in  her  mouth: 
'Voulez-vous  cesser  d'aimer,  possedez  la  chose 
aimee. 

The  historian  added:  "I  could  make  a  better 
story  about  it  than  has  ever  been  written  but  I 
have  more  serious  matters  in  hand." 

What  Dupleix  omitted  Brantome  supplied. 
To  the  latter  the  pleasure  of  but  beholding 
Margot  equalled  any  joy  of  paradise. 

Henri  IV  must  have  thought  otherwise.  He 
tried  to  divorce  her.  Margot  objected.  The 
volage  Henri  had  become  interested  in  the 
beaux  yeux  of  Gabrielle  d'Estrees.  Margot 
did  not  wish  to  be  succeeded  by  a  lady  whom  she 
called  "an  ordinary  person."  But  later,  for 
reasons  dynastic,  she  consented  to  abdicate  in 
favor  of  Marie  de  Medici,  and,  after  the  divorce, 
remained  with  Henri  on  terms  no  worse  than 
before,  visited  by  him,  a  contemporary  has  stated, 
reconciled,  counselled,  amused.2 

Gabrielle,  astonishingly  delicate,  deliciously 
pink,  apparently  very  poetic,  but  actually  prosaic 
in  the  extreme,  entranced  the  king  who  ceaselessly 

1  Dupleix:    Histoire  de  Louis  XIII. 

2  Pierre  de  l'Estoile:   Memoires  et  journaux. 


220  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

had  surrendered  to  the  fair  warriors  of  the  Light 
Brigade.  But  to  Gabrielle  the  surrender  was 
complete.  He  delivered  his  sword  to  mes  chers 
amours,  as  he  called  her,  mes  belles  amours, 
regarding  as  one  yet  multiple  this  fleur  des 
beautes  du  monde,  astre  clair  de  la  France, 
whose  portrait,  painted  as  he  expressed  it  in 
all  perfection,  was  in  his  soul,  his  heart,  his  eyes 
— temporarily  that  is,  but,  while  it  lasted,  so 
coercive  that  it  lifted  this  woman  into  a  sultana 
who  shared  as  consort  the  honors  of  the  trium- 
phal entry  of  the  first  Bourbon  king  into  the  Paris 
that  was  worth  to  him  a  mass. 

"It  was  in  the  evening,"  said  L'Estoile,  "and 
on  horseback  he  crossed  the  bridge  of  Notre 
Dame,  well  pleased  at  the  sight  of  all  the  people 
crying  loudly  'Live  the  King!'  And,  it  was 
laughingly,  hat  in  hand,  that  he  bowed  to  the 
ladies  and  demoiselles.  Behind  him  was  a  flag 
of  lilies.  A  little  in  advance,  in  a  magnificent 
litter,  was  Gabrielle  covered  with  jewels  so 
brilliant  that  they  offended  (offusquoient)  the 
lights." 

However  much  or  little  the  gems  then  affected 
the  lights,  later  they  pleased  the  Medician  Marie. 
She  draped  herself  with  them.  In  the  interim 
a  divorce  had  been  got  from  Margot.  Death  had 
brought  another  from  Gabrielle.  The  latter 
divorce   poison   probably   facilitated.     Gabrielle. 


LOVE  IN  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     221 

through  the  sheer  insolence  of  her  luxury  had  made 
herself  hated  by  the  poverty-stricken  Parisians. 
The  detail  is  unimportant.  There  was  another 
hatred  that  she  had  aroused.  Not  Henri's  how- 
ever. When  she  died  he  declared  that  the  root 
of  his  love,  dead  with  her,  would  never  grow  again 
— only  to  find  it  as  flourishing  as  ever,  flourishing 
for  this  woman,  flourishing  for  that,  budding 
ceaselessly  in  tropic  profusion,  until  the  dagger 
put  by  Marie  in  the  hand  of  Ravaillac,  extirpated 
it,  but  not  its  blossoms,  which  reflowered  at 
Whitehall. 

Henri's  daughter,  Henriette  de  France,  was 
mother  of  Charles  the  Second. 

The  latter's  advent  in  Puritan  England  effected 
a  transformation  for  which  history  has  no  parallel. 
In  the  excesses  of  sanctimoniousness  in  which 
the  whole  country  swooned,  it  was  as  though 
piety  had  been  a  domino  and  the  Restoration 
the  stroke  of  twelve.  In  the  dropping  of  masks 
the  world  beheld  a  nation  of  sinners  where  a 
moment  before  had  been  a  congregation  of  saints. 

Previously,  in  the  Elizabethan  age,  social  con- 
ditions had  made  up  in  winsomeness  what  they 
lacked  in  severity.  Whitehall,  under  James, 
became  a  replica,  art  deducted,  of  the  hermaph- 
roditisms  of  the  Valois  court.  Thereafter  the 
quasi-divinity  of  the  sovereign  evaporated  in  a 
contempt  that  endured  unsatiated  until  Charles  I, 


222  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

who  had  discovered  that  a  king  can  do  no  wrong, 
discovered  that  he  could  lose  his  head.  In  the 
amputation  a  crown  fell  which  Cromwell  dis- 
dained to  gather.  Meanwhile  the  false  spirit 
of  false  godliness  that  generated  British  cant  and 
American  hypocrisy  made  a  nation,  as  it  made 
New  England,  glum.  In  Parliament  where  a 
Bible  lay  open  for  reference,  it  was  resolved, 
that  no  person  should  be  admitted  to  public 
service  of  whose  piety  the  House  was  not  assured. 
In  committees  of  ways  and  means,  members 
asked  each  other  had  they  found  the  Lord. 
Amusements  were  sins;  theatres,  plague-spots; 
trifles,  felonies;  art  was  an  abomination  and 
love  a  shame.1 

Israel  could  not  have  been  more  depressing 
than  England  was  then.  A  reaction  was  indi- 
cated. Even  without  Charles  it  would  have  come. 
But  when  the  arid  air  was  displaced  by  the 
Gallic  atmosphere  which  he  brought,  England 
turned  a  handspring.  The  godliness  that  hitherto 
had  stalked  unchecked  was  flouted  into  seclusion. 
Anything  appertaining  to  Puritanism  was  jeered 
away.  Only  in  the  ultra-conservatism  of  the 
middle-classes  did  prudery  persist.  Elsewhere, 
among  criminals  and  courtiers,  the  new  fashion 
was  instantly  in  vogue.  The  memoirs  and 
diaries  of  the  reign  disclose  a  world  of  rakes  and 
lMacaulay:  History  of  England. 


LOVE  IN  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     223 

demi-reps,  a  life  of  brawls  and  assignations, 
much  drink,  high  play,  great  oaths,  a  form  of 
existence  summarizable  in  the  episode  of  Buck- 
ingham and  Shrewsbury  in  which  the  former 
killed  the  latter,  while  Lady  Shrewsbury,  dressed 
as  a  page,  held  the  duke's  horse,  and  approvingly 
looked  on. 

The  Elizabethan  and  intermediate  dramatists, 
mirroring  life  as  they  saw  it,  displayed  infidelity 
as  a  punishable  crime  and  constancy  as  a  reward- 
able  virtue.  By  the  dramatists  of  the  Restoration 
adultery  was  represented  as  a  polite  occupation 
and  virtue  as  a  provincial  oddity.  Men  wooed 
and  women  were  won  as  readily  as  they  were 
handed  in  to  supper,  scarcely,  Macaulay  noted, 
with  anything  that  could  be  called  a  preference, 
the  men  making  up  to  the  women  for  the  same 
reason  that  they  wore  wigs,  because  it  was  the 
fashion,  because,  otherwise,  they  would  have 
been  thought  city  prigs,  puritans  for  that  matter. 
Love  is  not  discernible  in  that  society  though 
philosophy  is.  But  it  was  the  philosophy  of 
Hobbes  who  taught  that  good  and  evil  are  terms 
used  to  designate  our  appetites  and  aversions. 

Higher  up,  Charles  II,  indolent,  witty,  debonair, 
tossing  handkerchiefs  among  women  who  were 
then,  as  English  gentlewomen  are  to-day,  the  most 
beautiful  in  the  world,  was  suffering  from  that  nos- 
talgia for  mud  which  affected  the  fifteenth  Louis. 


224  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

The  Du  Barry,  who  dishonored  the  scaffold  as 
well  as  the  throne,  has  a  family  likeness  to  Nell 
Gwynne.  Equally  canaille,  the  preliminary  occu- 
pations of  these  grisettes  differed  only  in  taste. 
One  sold  herrings,  the  other  hats.  The  Du 
Barry's  sole  heirs  were  the  cocottes  of  the  Second 
Empire.  From  Nell,  the  dukes  of  St.  Albans 
descend.  From  Barbara  Palmer  come  the  dukes 
of  Grafton;  from  Louise  de  la  Querouaille,  the 
dukes  of  Richmond;  from  Lucy  Walters,  the 
dukes  of  Buccleuch.  These  ladies,  as  Nell 
called  them,  were  early  miniatures  of  the  Chat- 
eauroux  and  the  Pompadour.  Like  them  they 
made  the  rain  and  the  fine  weather,  but,  though 
dukes  also,  not  princes  of  the  blood.  Charles 
cared  for  them,  cared  for  others,  cared  for  more 
but  always  cavalierly,  indifferent  whether  they 
were  constant  or  not,  yet  most  perhaps  for  Nell, 
succumbing  ultimately  in  the  full  consciousness 
of  a  life  splendidly  misspent,  apologizing  to  those 
that  stood  about  for  the  ridiculous  length  of 
time  that  it  took  him  to  die,  asking  them  not 
to  let  poor  Nelly  starve  and  bequeathing  to  the 
Georges  the  excellence  of  an  example  which 
those  persons  were  too  low  to  grasp. 

Anteriorly,  before  Charles  had  come,  at  the 
period  of  London's  extremest  piety,  Paris  was 
languishingly  sentimental.  Geography,  in  ex- 
panding   surprises,    had    successively    disclosed 


LOVE  IN  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     225 

the  marvels  of  the  Ineas,  the  elder  splendors  of 
Cathay  and  the  enchantments  of  fairyland. 
Then  a  paradise  virgin  as  a  new  planet  swam 
into  the  general  ken.  In  Perrault's  tales,  which 
had  recently  appeared,  were  vistas  of  the  land  of 
dreams.  Directly  adjoining  was  the  land  of 
love.  Its  confines  extended  from  the  Hotel  de 
Rambouillet. 

In  that  house,  to-day  a  department  store, 
conversation  was  first  cultivated  as  an  art. 
From  the  conversation  a  new  theory  of  the 
affections  developed.  For  the  first  time  people 
young  and  old  learned  the  precious  charm  of 
sentiment.  The  originator,  Mme.  de  Rambouil- 
let, was  a  woman  of  much  beauty  who,  in  days 
very  lax,  added  to  the  allurement  of  her  appear- 
ance the  charm  of  exclusiveness.  It  was  so 
novel  that  people  went  to  look  at  it.  Edu- 
cated in  Italy,  imbued  with  its  pretentious 
elegancies,  saturated  with  platonic  strains,  phys- 
ically too  fragile  and  temperamentally  too  sensi- 
tive for  the  ribald  air  of  a  reckless  court,  she  drew 
society  to  her  house,  where,  without  perhaps 
intending  it  she  succeeded  in  the  chimerical. 
Among  a  set  of  people  to  whom  laxity  was  an 
article  of  faith  she  made  the  observance  of  the 
Seventh  Commandment  an  object  of  fashionable 
meditation.  She  did  more.  In  gallantry  there 
is  a  little  of  everything  except  love      To  put  it 


226  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

there  is  not  humanly  possible.  Mme.  de  Ram- 
bouillet  did  not  try.  She  did  better.  She  in- 
serted respect. 

In  her  drawing-room — historically  the  first 
salon  that  the  world  beheld — this  lady,  in  con- 
junction with  her  collaborators,  exacted  from 
men  that  deference,  not  of  bearing  merely,  but 
of  speech,  to  which  every  woman  is  entitled  and 
which,  everywhere,  save  only  in  Italy,  women 
had  gone  without.  Hitherto  people  of  position 
had  not  been  recognizable  by  their  manners, 
they  had  none;  nor  by  their  language  which  was 
coarse  as  a  string  of  oaths.  They  were  known 
by  the  elegance  of  their  dress.  In  the  Hotel  de 
Rambouillet,  and  thereafter  little  by  little  else- 
where, they  became  known  by  the  elegance  of 
their  address.  It  was  a  great  service  and  an 
enduring  one  and  though,  through  the  abolition 
of  the  use  of  the  exact  term,  it  faded  the  color 
from  ink,  it  yet  induced  the  lexical  refinement 
from  which  contemporaneous  good  form  pro- 
ceeds. In  polishing  manners  it  sandpapered 
morals.  It  gave  to  both  the  essential  element 
of  delicacy  which  they  possess  to-day.  Subse- 
quently, under  the  dissolvent  influences  of 
Versailles  and  through  ridicule's  more  annihilat- 
ing might,  though  manners  persisted  morals  did 
not.  But  before  the  reaction  came  attar  of  rose 
was  really  distilled  from  mud.     Gross  appetites 


LOVE  IN  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     227 

became  sublimated.  Instead  of  ribaldry  there 
were  kisses  in  the  moonlight,  the  caress  of  eyes 
from  which  recklessness  had  gone.  Petrarehism 
returned,  madrigals  came  in  vogue,  the  social 
atmosphere  was  deodorized  again.  Into  gallan- 
try an  affected  sentimentality  entered,  loitered 
awhile  and  languished  away.  Women,  hitherto 
disquietingly  solid,  became  impalpable  as  the 
Queens  of  Castile  whom  it  was  treason  to  touch. 
Presently,  when,  in  the  Precieuses  Ridicules, 
Moliere  laughed  at  them,  the  shock  was  too 
great,  they  disintegrated.  In  the  interim,  senti- 
ment dwindled  into  nonsense  and  love,  evaporat- 
ing in  pretentiousness,  was  discoverable,  if  any- 
where, only  on  a  map. 

That  surprising  invention  was  the  work  of 
Mile,  de  Scudery,  one  of  the  affiliated  in  the 
Hotel  de  Rambouillet.  A  little  before,  Honore 
d'Urfe  had  written  a  pastoral  in  ten  interminable 
volumes.  Entitled  Astree  it  was  a  mirror  for 
the  uncertain  aspirations  of  the  day,  a  vast 
flood  of  tenderness  in  which  every  heart-throb, 
every  reason  for  loving  and  for  not  loving,  every 
shape  of  constancy  and  every  form  of  infidelity, 
every  joy,  every  deception,  every  conscience 
twinge  that  can  visit  sweethearts  and  swains 
was  analyzed,  subdivided  and  endlessly  set  forth. 
To  a  world  still  in  fermentation  it  provided  the 
laws  of  Love's  Twelve  Tables,  the  dream  after 


228  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

realism,  the  high  flown  after  the  matter  of  fact. 
Its  vogue  was  prodigious.  Whatever  it  omitted 
Mile,  de  Scudery's  Clelie,  another  novel,  equally 
interminable,  equally  famous,  equally  forgotten, 
supplied. 

The  latter  story  which  was  translated  into  all 
polite  tongues,  Arabic  included,  taught  love  as 
love  had  never  been  taught  before.  It  taught 
it  as  geography  is  taught  to-day,  providing  for 
the  purpose  a  Carte  du  Tendre,  the  map  of  a 
country  in  which  everything,  even  to  I  hate  you, 
was  tenderly  said. 

A  character  described  it. 

The  first  city  at  the  lower  end  of  the  map  is  New  Friend- 
ship. Now,  inasmuch  as  love  may  be  due  to  esteem,  to 
gratitude,  or  to  inclination,  there  are  three  cities  called  Tender- 
ness, each  situated  on  one  of  three  different  rivers  that  are 
approached  by  three  distinct  routes.  In  the  same  manner, 
therefore,  that  we  speak  of  Cumes  on  the  Ionian  Sea  and  Cumes 
on  the  Sea  of  Tyrrhinth,  so  is  there  Tenderness-on-Inclination, 
Tenderness-on-Esteem,  and  Tenderness-on-Gratitude.  Yet, 
as  the  affection  which  is  due  to  inclination  needs  nothing  to 
complete  it,  there  is  no  stopping  place  on  the  way  from  New 
Friendship  there.  But  to  go  from  New  Friendship  to  Tender- 
ness-on-Esteem is  very  different.  Along  the  banks  are  as 
many  villages  as  there  are  things  little  and  big  which  create 
that  esteem  of  which  affection  is  the  flower.  From  New 
Friendship  the  river  flows  to  a  place  called  Great  Wit,  because 
it  is  there  that  esteem  generally  begins.  Beyond  are  the 
agreeable  hamlets  of  Pretty  Verses  and  Billets  Doux,  after 
which  come  the  larger  towns  of  Sincerity,  Big  Heart,  Honesty, 
Generosity,  Respect,  Punctuality,  and  Kindness.  On  the  other 
hand,  to  go  from  New  Friendship  to  Tenderness-on-Gratitude, 


LOVE  IN  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     229 

the  first  place  reached  is  Complaisance,  then  come  the  borough 
of  Submission,  and.  next,  Delicate  Attentions.  From  the 
latter  Assiduousness  is  reached  and.  finally.  Great  Services. 
This  place,  probably  because  there  are  so  few  that  get  there, 
is  the  smallest  of  all.  But  adjoining  it  is  Obedience  and 
contiguous  is  Constancy.  That  is  the  most  direct  route  to 
Tenderness-on-Gratitude.  Yet,  as  there  are  no  routes  in 
which  one  may  not  lose  one's  way,  so,  if,  after  leaving  New 
Friendship,  you  went  a  little  to  the  right  or  a  little  to  the  left, 
you  would  get  lost  also.  For  if,  in  going  from  Great  Wit, 
you  took  to  the  right,  you  would  reach  Negligence,  keeping 
on  you  would  get  to  Inequality,  from  there  you  would  pass 
to  Lukewarm  and  Forgetful ness,  and  presently  you  would  be 
on  the  lake  of  Indifference.  Similarly  if,  in  starting  from  New 
Friendship  you  took  to  the  left,  one  after  another  you  would 
arrive  at  Indiscretion,  Perfidiousness,  Pride,  Tittle-Tattle, 
Wickedness  and,  instead  of  landing  at  Tenderness-on-Grati- 
tude, you  would  find  yourself  at  Enmity,  from  which  no  boats 
return. 

The  vogue  of  Astrce  was  enormous.  That 
of  CUlie  exceeded  it.  Throughout  Europe, 
wherever  lovers  were,  the  map  of  the  Pays  du 
Tendre  was  studied.  But  its  indications,  other- 
wise excellent,  did  not  prevent  Mile,  de  Scudery 
from  reaching  Emnity  herself.  The  Abbe  d'Au- 
bignac  produced  a  history  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Coquetry  in  which  were  described  Flattery 
Square,  Petticoat  Lane,  Flirtation  Avenue,  Sweet 
Kiss  Inn,  the  Bank  of  Rewards  and  the  Church 
of  Good-by.  Between  the  abbe  and  the  demoi- 
selle a  conversation  ensued  relative  to  the  priority 
of  the  idea.  It  was  their  first  and  their  last. 
The  one  real  hatred  is  literary  hate. 


230  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

Meanwhile  the  puerilities  of  Clelie,  plati- 
tudinously  repeated  across  the  Channel,  resulted 
at  Berlin  in  the  establishment  of  an  Academy 
of  True  Love.  Then,  into  the  entire  nonsense, 
the  Cid  blew  virilly  a  resounding  note. 

In  that  splendid  drama  of  Corneille,  Rodrigue 
and  Chimene,  the  hero  and  heroine,  are  to  love 
what  martyrs  were  to  religion,  all  in  all  for  it  and 
for  nothing  else  whatever.  They  moved  to  the 
clash  of  swords,  to  the  clatter  of  much  duelling,  a 
practice  which  Richelieu  opposed.     Said  Boileau: 

En  vain  contre  le  Cid  un  ministre  se  ligue, 
Tout  Paris  pour  Chimene  a  les  yeux  de  Rodrigue. 

They  merited  the  attention.  Theirs  was  real 
love,  a  love  struggling  between  duty  and  fervor, 
one  that  effected  the  miracle  of  an  interchange 
of  soul,  transferring  the  entity  of  the  beloved  into 
the  heart  of  the  lover  and  completed  at  last  by  a 
union  entered  into  with  the  pride  of  those  who 
recognize  above  their  own  will  no  higher  power 
than  that  of  God.  Admirable  and  emulative 
the  beauty  of  it  passed  into  a  proverb : — "  C'est 
beau  comme  le  Cid." 

The  Cid  was  a  Spaniard.  But  of  another  age. 
Melancholy  but  very  proud,  the  Spaniard  of  the 
seventeenth  century  lived  in  a  desert  which  the 
Inquisition  had  made.  The  Holy  Office  that  had 
sent  Christ  to  the  Aztecs  brought  back  Vizlipoutzli, 


LOVE  IN  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY  2.31 

a   Mexican   deity   whose   food   was   hearts.     His 
carnivorousncss   interested   the   priests   at  home. 
They  put  night  around  them,  a  night  in  which 
there    was    flame,    fireworks    of    flesh  at  which 
a    punctilious    etiquette    required    that    royalty 
should    assist    and    which,    while    inducing    the 
hysteria  that  there  entered  into  love,  illuminated 
the  path  of  empire  from  immensity  to  nothingness. 
At  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Spain, 
bankrupt    through    the    expulsion    of   the    Jews, 
barren  through  loss  of  the  Moors,  was  a  giant, 
moribund  and  starving.     Only  the  Holy  Office, 
terribly  alive,  was  terribly  fed.     Every  man  was 
an  object  of  suspicion  and  every  man  was  sus- 
picious.    The    secret    denunciation,    the    sudden 
arrest,  the  dungeon,  the  torture,  the  stake,  these 
things    awaited  any  one.       The     nation,  silent, 
sombre,  morbid,  miserably  poor,  none  the    less 
was  draped  proudly  enough  in  its  tatters.     The 
famine,   haughty  itself,   that  stalks  through  the 
pages  of  Cervantes  is  the  phantom  of  that  pride. 
Beside  it  should  be  placed  the  rigid  ceremonial 
of    an    automaton    court    where    laughter    was 
neither  heard  nor  permitted,  where  men  had  the 
dress  and  the  gravity  of  mutes ,   where  women 
counted  their  beads  at  balls,  where  a  minutious 
etiquette  that  inhibited  a  queen  from  looking  from 
a   window   and  assumed  that   she  had   no  legs, 
Tegulated    everything,    attitudes,    gifts,    gestures, 


232  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

speech,  the  etiquette  of  the  horrible  Escorial 
through  which  gusts  of  madness  blew. 

Other  courts  had  fools.  The  court  of  Spain 
had  Embevecidos,  idiots  who  were  thought  to 
be  drunk  with  love  and  who,  because  of  their 
condition,  were  permitted,  like  grandees,  to  wear 
the  hat  in  the  presence.  On  festivals  there  were 
other  follies,  processions  semi-erotic,  wholly 
morbid,  through  cathedrals  haunted  by  entre- 
metteuses,  through  chapels  in  which  hung 
Madonnas  that  fascinated  and  shocked,  Virgins 
that  more  nearly  resembled  Infantas  serenaded  by 
caballeros  than  queens  of  the  sky  and  beneath 
whose  indulgent  eyes  rendez-vous  were  made  by 
lovers  whom,  elsewhere,  etiquette  permitted  only 
the  language  of  signs.1 

To  journey  then  from  Madrid  to  Paris  was  like 
passing  from  a  picture  by  Goya  to  a  tale  of  Per- 
rault.  Paris  at  the  time  was  marvelling  at  two 
wonders,  an  earthly  Olympus  and  real  love. 
The  first  was  Versailles,  the  second  La  Valliere. 
Louis  XIV  created  the  one  and  destroyed  the 
other.  Already  married,  attentive  meanwhile  to 
his  brother's  wife,  he  was  coincidentally  epris 
with  their  various  maids  of  honor.  Among  them 
was  a  festival  of  beauty  in  the  festival  of  life,  a 
girl  of  eighteen  who  had  been  made  for  caresses 
and  who  died  of  them,  the  only  human  being 
1  Saint- Victor.    L'Espagne  sous  Charles  II. 


LOVE  IN  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY     233 

save  Louis  XIV  that  ever  loved  the  fourteenth 
Louis.  Other  women  adulated  the  king.  It 
was  the  man  that  Louise  de  la  Valliere  adored. 
To  other  women  his  sceptre  was  a  fan.  To  her 
it  was  a  regret.  Could  he  have  been  some  mere 
lieutenant  of  the  guards  she  would  have  preferred 
it  inexpressibly.  The  title  of  duchess  which 
he  gave  her  was  a  humiliation  which  she  hid 
beneath  the  name  of  Sceur  Louise  de  la  Miseri- 
corde.  For  her  youth  which  was  a  poem  of  love 
had  the  cloister  for  climax.  That  love,  a  pastime 
to  him,  was  death  to  her.  At  its  inception  she 
fled  from  it,  from  the  sun,  from  the  Sun-King, 
and  flinging  at  him  a  passionate  farewell,  flung 
herself  as  passionately  into  a  convent. 

Louis  stormed  it.  If  necessary  he  would  have 
burned  it.  He  strode  in  booted  and  spurred  as 
already  he  had  stalked  into  Parliament  where  he 
shouted :— "  L'Etat  c'est  moi."  Mile,  de  la 
Valliere  c'etait  lui  aussi.  The  girl,  then  pros- 
trate before  a  crucifix,  was  clinging  to  the  feet 
of  a  Christ.  But  her  god  was  the  king.  He 
knew  it.  When  he  appeared  so  did  she.  For 
a  moment,  Louis,  he  to  whom  France  knelt, 
knelt  to  her.  For  a  moment  the  monarch  had 
vanished.  A  lover  was  there.  From  a  chapel 
came  an  odor  of  incense.  Beyond,  a  knell  was 
being  tolled.  For  background  were  the  scared 
white  faces  of  nuns,  alarmed  at  this  irruption  of 


234  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

human  passion  in  a  retreat  where  hearts  were 
stirred  but  by  the  divine.  A  moment  only. 
Louis,  with  his  prey,  had  gone. 

Thereafter  for  a  few  brief  years,  this  girl  who, 
had  she  wished  could  have  ruled  the  world, 
wanted,  not  pomp,  not  power,  not  parade,  love, 
merely  love,  nothing  else.  It  was  very  ambitious 
of  her.  Yet,  precisely  as  through  fear  of  love 
she  had  flung  herself  into  a  cloister,  at  the  loss  of 
it  she  returned  there,  hiding  herself  so  effectually 
in  prayer  that  the  king  himself  could  hardly  have 
found  her — had  he  tried.  He  omitted  to.  Louis 
then  was  occupied  with  the  Marquise  de  Montes- 
pan.  Of  trying  he  never  thought.  On  the  con- 
trary.    Mme.  de  Montespan  was  very  fetching. 

A  year  later,  in  the  Church  of  the  Carmelites, 
in  the  presence  of  the  patient  queen,  of  the 
impatient  marquise,  of  the  restless  court — com- 
plete, save  for  Louis  who  was  hunting — Mile,  de 
la  Valliere,  always  serni-seraphic  but  then  wholly 
soul,  saw  the  severe  Bossuet  slowly  ascend  the 
pulpit,  saw  him  bow  there  to  the  queen,  make 
the  sign  of  the  cross  and,  before  he  motioned  the 
bride  to  take  the  black  veil  which  was  a  white 
shroud,  heard,  above  the  sobs  of  the  assistants, 
his  clear  voice  proclaim : — 

'  Et  dixit  qui  sedebat  in  throno :   Ecce  nova  f acio  omnia.' 
Behind  the  bars,  behind  the  veil,  wrapped  in 


LOVE  IN  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY    235 

that  shroud,  for  thirty-six  years  Louise  de  la 
Misericorde,  dead  to  love  and  dead  to  life,  expi- 
ated her  ambition. 

The  fate  of  Louis  Quatorze  was  less  noble. 
The  Olympus  in  which  he  was  Jupiter  with  the 
Montespan  for  Juno  became  a  prison.  The 
jailer  was  Mme.  de  Maintenon.  Intermediately 
was  the  sun.  That  was  his  emblem.  About 
him  the  spheres  revolved.  To  him  incense 
ascended.  A  nobody  by  comparison  to  Alexander, 
unworthy  of  a  footnote  where  Caesar  is  concerned, 
through  sheer  pomp,  through  really  royal  mag- 
nificence, through  a  self-infatuation  at  once 
ridiculous  and  sublime,  through  the  introduction 
of  a  studied  politeness,  a  ceremonial  majestic 
and  grave,  through  a  belief  naively  sincere  and 
which  he  had  the  ability  to  instil,  that  from  him 
everything  radiated  and  to  him  all,  souls,  hearts, 
lives,  property,  everything,  absolutely  belonged, 
through  these  things,  in  a  gilded  balloon,  this 
pigmy  rose  to  the  level  of  heroes  and  hung  there, 
before  a  wondering  world,  over  a  starving  land, 
until  the  wind-inflated  silk,  pierced  by  Marl- 
borough, collapsed. 

In  the  first  period  Versailles  was  an  opera 
splendidly  given,  the  partition  by  Lully,  the 
libretto  by  Moliere,  in  which  the  monarch,  as 
tenor,  strutted  on  red  heels,  ogling  the  prime 
donne,  eyeing  the  house,  warbling  airs  solemn 


236  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

yet  bouffe.  In  the  second  the  theatre  was 
closed.  Don  Juan  had  turned  monk.  The 
kingdom  of  Louis  XIV  was  no  longer  of  this 
world.  It  was  then  only  that  he  was  august. 
In  the  first  period  was  the  apogee  of  absolutism, 
the  incarnation  of  an  entire  nation  in  one  man 
who  in  pompous  scandals,  everywhere  imitated, 
gave  a  ceremonious  dignity  to  sin.  Over  the 
second  a  biblical  desolation  spread. 


IX 
LOVE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

To  the  cradle  of  the  eighteenth  century  came 
the  customary  gifts,  in  themselves  a  trifle  unusual. 
Queen  Anne  sent  the  dulness  of  perfect  gen- 
tility. Queen  Maintenon  gave  bigotry.  Louis 
XIV  provided  the  spectacle  of  a  mythological 
monster.  But  Molinos,  a  Spanish  fairy,  unin- 
vited at  the  christening,  malignantly  sent  his 
blessing.  The  latter,  known  as  quietism,  was 
one  of  love's  aberrations.  It  did  not  last  for 
the  reason  that  nothing  does.  Besides,  the  life 
of  a  century  is  long  enough  to  outgrow  many 
things,  curses  as  well  as  blessings.  For  the  time 
being,  however,  throughout  Europe  generally 
and  in  certain  sections  of  America,  quietism 
found  adherents. 

The  new  evangel,  originally  published  at  Rome, 
had  a  woman,  Mme.  Guyon,  for  St.  Paul.  Its 
purport  Boileau  summarized  as  the  enjoyment 
in  paradise  of  the  pleasures  of  hell.  As  is  fre- 
quently the  case  with  summaries,  that  of  Boileau 
was  not  profound.  Diderot  called  it  the  true 
religion   of  the   tender-hearted.      Diderot   some- 


238  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

times  nodded.     Quietism  was  not  that.     A  little 
before    rose-water  had  been  distilled  from  mud. 
Quietism  reversed  the  process.     From  the  lilies 
of  mysticity  it  extracted  dirt.     In  itself  an  ether- 
ealized  creed  of  predeterminism,  it  put  fatalism 
into  love.     The  added  ingredient  was  demoraliz- 
ing.    Already  Maria  d'Agreda,  a  Spanish  nun, 
had   written   a  tract  that  made   Bossuet  blush. 
The    doctrine    of    Molinos    made    him    furious. 
Against  it,  against  Mme.  Guyon,  against  Fenelon 
who  indorsed  her,  against  all  adherents,  he  waged 
one  of  those  memorable  wars  which  the  world 
has     entirely     forgotten.     It     had     though     its 
justification.     Morbid   as   everything   that   came 
from  Spain,  quietism  held  that  temptations  are 
the  means  that  God  employs  to  purge  the  soul 
of  passion.     It  taught  that  they  should  not  be 
shunned  but  welcomed.     The  argument  advanced 
was  to  the  effect  that,  in  the  omnisapience  of  the 
divine,  man  is  saved  not  merely  by  good  works 
but  by  evil  deeds,  by  sin  as  well  as  by  virtue. 

In  the  Roman  circus,  the  Christian,  once 
subtracted  from  life,  was  subtracted  also  from 
evil.  What  then  happened  to  his  body  was  a 
matter  of  indifference  to  him.  In  quietism  that 
indifference  was  solicited  before  subtraction  came. 
It  was  disclosed  as  a  means  of  grace  to  the  living. 
Through  the  exercise  of  will,  or,  more  exactly 
through   its   extinction,   the   Christian   was  told 


LOVE  IN  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY     239 

to  separate  soul  from  body.  The  soul  then, 
asleep  in  God,  lost  to  any  connection  between 
itself  and  the  flesh,  was  indifferent,  as  the  martyr, 
to  whatever  happened. 

The  result  is  as  obvious  as  it  was  commodious. 
The  body,  artificially  released  from  all  restraint 
and  absolved  from  any  responsibility,  was  free 
to  act  as  it  listed. 

In  discussing  the  doctrine,  Fenelon  declared 
that  there  are  souls  so  inflamed  with  the  love  of 
God  and  so  resigned  to  His  will  that,  if  they 
believed  themselves  damned,  they  would  accept 
eternal  punishment  with  thanksgiving. 

For  propagating  this  insanity  Fenelon  was 
accorded  the  honors  of  a  bishopric  which  was 
exile.  Mme.  Guyon  received  the  compliment  of 
a  lettre  de  cachet  which  was  prison.  The  Roman 
Inquisition  cloistered  Molinos.  That  was  fame. 
The  doctrine  became  notorious.  Moreover,  there 
was  in  it  something  so  old  that  it  seemed  quite 
new.  Society,  always  avid  of  novelties,  adopted 
it.  But  presently  fresher  fashions  supervened. 
In  France  these  were  originated  by  the  Regent, 
in  England  by  Germany. 

At  the  accession  of  Louis  XIV,  Germany, 
for  nearly  thirty  years,  had  been  a  battlefield. 
The  war  waged  there  was  in  the  interests  of 
religion.  The  Holy  Office  was  not  unique  in  its 
pastimes.     There   was   fiendishness   everywhere, 


240  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

cruelty  married  to  mania,  in  which  Germany 
joined.  Germany  employed  the  serviceable  rack, 
the  thumbscrew,  the  wheel,  vats  of  vitriol,  burning 
oil,  drawing  and  quartering.  Occasionally  there 
were  iron  cages  in  which  the  wicked  were  hung 
on  church  steeples  with  food  suspended  a  little 
higher,  just  out  of  reach.  Occasionally  also 
criminals  were  respited  and  released  when, 
through  some  miracle  of  love  there  were  those 
that  agreed  to  marry  them.1 

That  indulgence  occurred  after  the  Peace  of 
Westphalia.  Germany,  then,  decimated  and  des- 
olate, was  so  depopulated  that  the  Franconian 
Estates  legalized  bigamy.  Every  man  was  per- 
mitted two  wives.  Meanwhile  barbarism  had 
returned.  Domestic  life  had  ceased.  Respect 
for  women  had  gone.  Love  had  died  with  relig- 
ion. From  the  nervous  strain  recovery  was  slow. 
It  was  a  century  before  the  pulse  of  the  people  was 
normal.  Previously  love,  better  idealized  by  the 
Minnesanger  than  by  the  minstrel,  had  been  put 
on  a  pedestal  from  which  convulsive  conditions 
shook  it.  Later,  when  it  arose  again,  it  was  in  two 
forms  which,  while  distinct,  were  not  opposed.  In 
one  was  the  influence  of  France,  in  the  other  the 
native  Schwarmerei.  The  former  affected  kings, 
the  latter  appealed  to  urbaner  folk  among  whom 
it  induced  an  attitude  that  was  maudlin  when  not 
1  Menzel:    Germany. 


LOVE  IN  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY     241 

anarchistic.  The  anarchistic  attitude  was  repre- 
sented by  artists  generally.  For  these  love  had  no 
laws  and  its  one  approach  was  the  swift  current 
running  from  New  Friendship  to  Tcnderness-on- 
Inclination.  Similarly  the  conservatives  landed 
at  a  village  that  Clelie  overlooked,  Tenderness- 
on-Sympathy,  a  spot  where,  through  sheer  conta- 
gion, everybody  engaged  in  duels  of  emotion  dur- 
ing which  principals  and  seconds  fell  on  each 
other's  neck,  wept,  embraced,  swore  affection  auf 
immerdar — beyond  the  tomb  and,  in  the  process, 
discovered  elective  affinities,  the  Wahlverwandt- 
schaften  of  which  Goethe  later  told,  relationships 
of  choice  that  were  also  anarchistic. 

The  influence  of  France  brooded  over  courts. 
At  Versailles  love  strolled  on  red  heels  through  a 
minuet.  In  the  grosser  atmosphere  of  the  German 
Residenzen  it  kicked  a  chahut  in  sabots.  In  all 
the  world  there  was  but  one  Versailles.  In  Ger- 
many there  were  a  hundred  imitations,  gaunt, 
gilded,  hideous  barracks  where  Louis  Quatorze 
was  aped.  In  one  of  them,  at  Karlsruhe,  the  Mar- 
grave Karl  Wilhelm  peopled  a  Teuton  Trianon 
with  nameless  nymphs.  In  another,  at  Dresden, 
the  Elector  Augustus  of  Saxony  became  the  father 
of  three  hundred  and  fifty  children.  At  Mann- 
heim, Bayreuth,  Stuttgart,  Brunswick,  Darm- 
stadt, license  was  such  that  the  Court  of  Charles 
the  Second  would  have  seemed  by  comparison 
16 


242  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

puritan.  Beyond  them,  outside  their  gates  and 
garden  vistas,  the  people  starved  or,  more  hu- 
manely, were  whipped  off  in  herds  to  fight  and  die 
on  the  Rhine  and  Danube.  But  within,  at  the 
various  Wilhelmshohe  and  Ludwigslust,  kinglets 
danced  with  their  Frauen.  At  Versailles  it  was 
to  the  air  of  Amaryllis  that  the  minuet  was  walked. 
In  the  German  Residenzen  it  was  to  the  odor  of 
schnapps  that  women  chahuted. 

The  women  lacked  beauty.  They  lacked  the 
grace  of  the  Latin,  the  charm  of  the  Slav,  the  over- 
grown angel  look  of  the  English,  the  prettiness  that 
the  American  has  achieved.  But  in  girlhood  gen- 
erally they  were  endearing,  almost  cloying,  natur- 
ally constant  and,  when  otherwise,  made  so  by  man 
and  the  spectacle  of  court  corruption. 

European  courts  have  always  supplied  the  neigh- 
borhood with  standards  of  morals  and  manners. 
Those  of  eighteenth-century  Germany  were  coarse. 
The  tone  of  society  was  similar.  "  Berlin,"  an  ob- 
server wrote,  "is  a  town  where,  if  fortis  may  be 
construed  honest,  there  is  neither  vir  fortis  nee 
fcemina  casta.  The  example  of  neglect  of  all 
moral  and  social  duties  raised  before  the  eyes  of 
the  people  by  the  king  show  them  vice  too  advan- 
tageously.1 In  other  words  and  in  another  tongue, 
s'milar  remarks  were  made  of   Hanover.2     From 

1  Earl  Malmesbury's  Diaries  and  Correspondence. 

2  Scherr:   Deutsche  Kulturgeschichte. 


LOVE  IN  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY     243 

there  came  George  the  First.     After  him  trooped 
his  horrible  Herrenhausen  harem. 

Since  the  departure  of  Charles  the  Second,  Lon- 
don life  had  been  relatively  genteel.  Throughout 
the  Georgian  period  it  was  the  reverse.  The  me- 
moirs of  the  period  echo  still  with  shouts  and  laugh- 
ter, with  loud,  loose  talk,  with  toasts  bawled  over 
brimming  cups,  with  the  noise  of  feasting,  of 
gaming  and  of  pleasure.  The  pages  turn  to  the 
sound  of  fiddles.  From  them  arises  the  din  of  an 
immense  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley,  in  which  the 
dancers  go  up  and  down,  interchanging  hearts  and 
then  all  hands  round  together.  In  England  at  the 
time  a  king,  however  vulgar,  was  superterrestrial,  a 
lord  was  sacro-sanct,  a  gentleman  holy  and  a  lady 
divine. 

The  rest  of  the  world  was  composed  of  insects, 
useful,  obsequious,  parasitic  that  swarmed  be- 
neath a  social  order  less  coarse  than  that  of  Ger- 
many, less  amiable  than  that  of  France,  but  as 
dissolute  and  reckless  as  either,  a  society  of 
macaronis  and  rouged  women,  of  wits  and 
prodigals,  of  dare-devils  and  fatted  calves,  a 
life  of  low  scandals  in  high  places,  of  great  for- 
tunes thrown  into  the  gutter,  of  leisurely  suppers 
and  sudden  elopements — runaways  that  had  in 
their  favor  the  poetry  of  the  post-chaise,  pistol- 
shots  through  the  windows  and  the  dignity  of 
danger — a  life  mad  but  not  maudlin,  not  sober  but 


244  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

strong,  free  from  hysteria  and  sentimentality,  and 
in  which,  apart  from  the  bacchanalian  London 
world,  there  must  have  been  room,  as  there 
always  is,  for  real  love  and  much  sweetness 
besides,  yet  which,  in  its  less  alluring  aspect  was 
very  faithfully  followed  by  colonial  New  York. 
Meanwhile  the  world  that  made  the  pace  and 
kept  it,  saw  it  reflected  back  from  boards  and 
books,  in  plays  and  novels,  some  of  which  are 
not  now  even  mentionable.  That  pace,  set 
by  a  boozing  sovereign  is  summarizable  in  a 
scene  that  occurred  at  the  death-bed  of  Queen 
Caroline,  when  the  latter  told  old  George  II.  to 
marry  again,  while  he  blubbered:  "Non,  non, 
j'aurai  des  mattresses,"  and  she  retorted,  "Ah! 
mon  Dieu!   Cela  n'empeche  pas."1 

These  Germans  talked  French.  It  was  the 
fashion,  one  adopted  in  servile  homage  of  the 
Grand  Monarque.  At  the  latter's  departure  the 
Regency  came.  With  the  Restoration  England 
turned  a  moral  handspring.  With  the  Regency, 
France  turned  a  double  one.  The  Regency  was 
the  first  act  of  the  Revolution.  The  second  was 
Louis  Quinze.  The  third  was  the  Guillotine — 
a  climax  for  which  great  ladies  rehearsed  that 
they  might  die,  as  they  had  lived,  with  grace. 

Moscow,  meanwhile,  was  a  bloody  sewer,  Vienna 
a  reconstruction  of  the  cities  that  overhung  the 
1  Hervey:  Memoirs. 


LOVE  IN  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY      245 

Bitter  Sea.  In  Paris  were  the  beginnings  of 
humanitarianism,  the  commencements  of  to-day, 
preludes  quavering  and  uncertain,  hummed 
over  things  intolerably  base,  but  none  the  less 
audible,  none  the  less  there.  In  them  was  the 
dawn  of  liberty,  the  rebirth  of  real  love,  an 
explosion  of  evil  but  also  of  good. 
Said  Tartuffe: 

Le  scandale  du  monde  est  ce  qui  fait  1' offense 
Et  ce  n'est  pas  pecher  que  pecher  en  silence. 

Under  the  Maintenon  regime  the  theory  had 
been  very  fully  exploited.  Multiple  turpitudes 
were  committed  but  in  the  dark.  Under  the 
Regency  they  occurred  openly,  unhypocritically, 
in  the  daylight.  The  mud  that  was  there  was 
dried  by  the  sun.  It  ceased  to  be  unwholesome. 
Though  vile  it  was  not  vicious.  Moreover,  in 
the  air  was  a  carnival  gayety,  put  there  by  the 
Regent,  who,  while  not  the  best  man  in  the 
world  was  not  the  worst,  an  artistic  Lovelace  that 
gave  the  tone  to  a  Neronian  society,  already  in 
dissolution,  one  that  Law  tossed  into  the  Niagara 
of  bankruptcy  and  Cartouche  held  up,  a  society 
of  which  Beranger  said: 

Tous  les  hommes  plaisantaient, 
Et  les  femmes  se  pretaient 
A  la  gaudriole. 

Mme.    de    Longueville    being   in    the    country 


246  HISTORIA   AM  ORIS 

was  asked,  would  she  hunt.  Mme.  de  Longue- 
ville  did  not  care  for  hunting.  Would  she  fish, 
would  she  walk,  would  she  drive  ?  No,  she  would 
not.  Mme.  de  Longueville  did  not  care  for  inno- 
cent pleasures.  Mme.  de  Longueville  was  a 
typical  woman  of  the  day.  Life  to  such  as  she 
was  a  perpetual  bal  d'opera  and  love,  the  image 
of  Fragonard's  Cupid,  who,  in  the  picture  of  the 
Chemise  enlevee,  divested  it  of  modesty  with 
a  smirk.1 

Modesty  then  was  neither  appreciated  nor 
ingrained.  The  instinct  of  it  was  lacking.  It 
was  a  question  of  pins,  a  thing  attachable  or 
detachable  at  will.  Women  of  position  received 
not  necessarily  in  a  drawing-room,  or  even  in  a 
boudoir  but  in  bed.  In  art  and  literature  there 
was  an  equal  sans-gene.  In  affairs  of  the  heart 
there  was  an  equivalent  indifference.  There 
was  no  romance,  no  dream,  no  beyond.  Chivalric 
ideals  were  regarded  as  mediaeval  bric-a-brac 
and  fine  sentiments  as  rubbish.  Even  gallantry 
with  its  mimic  of  being  jealous  and  its  pretended 
constancy  was  vieux  jeu.  Love,  or  what  passed 
for  it,  had  become  a  fugitive  caprice,  lightly 
assumed  and  as  readily  discarded,  without 
prejudice  to  either  party. 

On  s' enlace.     Puis,  un  jour, 
On  s'en  lasse.     C'est  Tamom-. 

1  Goncourt:    La  Femme  au  dix-huitieme  siecle. 


LOVE  IN  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY     247 

It  had,  however,  other  descents,  a  fall  to  depths 
of  which  history  hitherto  had  been  ignorant. 
Meanwhile  the  Regent  had  gone.  Louis  XV 
had  come.  With  him  were  the  real  sovereigns 
of  the  realm,  Mme.  de  Chateauroux,  Petticoat  I; 
the  Pompadour,  Petticoat  II:  the  Du  Barry, 
Petticoat  III  — legitimatized  queens  of  love, 
with  courts  of  their  own,  with  the  rights,  pre- 
rogatives and  immunities  of  princesses  of  the 
blood,  the  privilege  of  dwelling  with  the  king,  of 
receiving  foreign  ambassadors  and  of  pillaging 
France. 

"Sire,"  said  Choiseul,  "the  people  are  starv- 
ing."    Louis  XV  answered:    "I  am  bored." 

The  boredom  came  from  precocious  pleasures 
that  had  left  him,  without  energy  or  conviction, 
a  cold,  dreary  brute,  Asiatic  and  animal,  a  sort 
of  Oriental  idol  gloomy  and  gilded,  who,  while 
figuratively  a  spoke  in  the  wheel  of  monarchy 
then  rolling  down  to  '89,  personally  was  a  mino- 
taur  in  a  feminine  labyrinth  which  he  filled, 
emptied,  renewed,  indifferent  to  the  inmates  as 
he  was  to  his  wife,1  wringing  for  the  various 
Petticoats  prodigal  sums  from  a  desolate  land, 
supplying  incidentally  to  fermiers  generaux  and 
grands  seigneurs  an  example  in  Tiberianism 
which,     assured     of     immunity,     they    greedily 

1  "II  lui  fit  sept  enfants  sans  lui  dire  un  mot." — d'Argen- 
son. 


248  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

followed  and,  generally,  making  himself  so  loathed 
that  when  he  died,  delight  was  national. 

It  was  in  those  days  that  Casanova  promenaded 
through  palace  and  cottage,  convent  and  inn, 
inveigling  in  the  course  of  the  promenade  three 
thousand  women,  princesses  and  soubrettes,  ab- 
besses and  ballet  girls,  matrons  and  maids. 
The  promenade,  which  was  a  continuous  sin, 
he  recited  at  length  in  his  memoirs.  During 
the  recital  you  see  a  hideous  old  man,  slippered 
and  slovenly,  fumbling  in  a  box  in  which  are 
faded  ribbons,  rumpled  notes,  souvenirs  and 
gages  d'amour. 

Richelieu  was  another  of  that  type  which  the 
example  of  the  throne  had  created  and  which 
de  Sade  alone  eclipsed.  It  was  then  there 
appeared  in  Petersburg,  in  Vienna,  in  London, 
wherever  society  was,  a  class  of  men,  who  de- 
praved women  for  the  pleasure  of  it,  and  a  class 
of  women  who  destroyed  men  for  destruction's 
sake,  men  and  women  who  were  the  hyenas  of 
love,  monsters  whose  treachery  was  premeditated 
and  malignant,  and  who,  their  object  attained, 
departed  with  a  laugh,  leaving  behind  but  ruin. 
Ruin  was  insufficient.  Something  acuter  was 
required.     That  something  was  found  by  de  Sade. 

In  ways  which  Bluebeard  had  but  outlined, 
the  Marquis  de  Sade,  lineal  descendant  of  Pe- 
trarch's Laura,  mingled  kisses  with  blood.     Into 


LOVE  IN  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY      249 

affection  he  put  fright,  into  love  he  struck  terror, 
he  set  the  infernal  in  the  divine. 

It  was  the  logical  climax  to  which  decadence 
had  groped  and  to  it  already  the  austere  guillotine 
was  attending. 

There  love  touched  bottom.  It  could  not  go 
lower.  But  though  it  could  and  did  remount  it 
did  not  afterward  reach  higher  altitudes  than 
those  to  which  it  had  previously  ascended.  In 
the  eighteenth  century  the  possible  situations  of 
its  infinite  variety  were,  at  least  temporarily, 
exhausted.  Thereafter  the  frailties  of  great 
ladies,  the  obscurer  liaisons  of  lesser  ones,  attach- 
ments perfect  and  imperfect,  loves  immaculate 
and  the  reverse,  however  amply  set  forth,  disclose 
no  new  height.  As  the  pages  of  chronicles  turn 
and  faces  emerge,  lovers  appear  and  vanish.  In 
the  various  annals  of  different  lands  their  amours, 
pale  or  fervid  as  the  case  may  be,  differ  perhaps 
but  only  in  atmosphere  and  accessories.  On 
antecedent  types  no  advance  is  accomplished. 
Recitals  of  them  cease  to  enlighten.  Love  had 
become  what  it  has  since  remained,  a  harper 
strumming  familiar  airs,  strains  hackneyed  if 
delicate,  melodies  very  old  but  always  new,  so 
novel  even  that  they  seem  original  To  the 
music  of  it  history  discloses  fresher  mouths 
further  smiles,  tears  and  kisses.  History  will 
always  do  that      Wrongly  is  it  said  that  it  repeats 


250  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

itself.  Except  with  love  it  never  does.  In  life 
as  in  death  change  is  the  one  thing  constant. 
Between  them  love  alone  stands  changeless. 
Since  it  first  appeared  it  has  had  many  costumes, 
a  wardrobe  of  tissues  of  every  hue.  But  in 
character  it  has  not  altered.  Influences  favor- 
able or  prejudicial  might  degrade  it  or  exalt. 
In  abasements  and  assumptions  love,  like  beauty, 
being  one  and  indivisible,  remained  unchange- 
ably love.     What  varied  was  the  costume. 


THE  LAW  OF  ATTRACTION 

"  To  renounce  your  individuality,  to  see  with 
another's  eyes,  to  hear  with  another's  ears,  to  be 
two  and  yet  but  one,  to  so  melt  and  mingle  that 
you  no  longer  know  are  you  you  or  another, 
to  constantly  absorb  and  constantly  radiate,  to 
reduce  earth,  sea,  and  sky  and  all  that  in  them  is 
to  a  single  being,  to  give  yourself  to  that  being  so 
wholly  that  nothing  whatever  is  withheld,  to  be 
prepared  at  any  moment  for  any  sacrifice,  to 
double  your  personality  in  bestowing  it — that  is 

love." 

So  Gautier  wrote,  very  beautifully  as  was  his 
beautiful  custom.  But  in  this  instance  inexactly. 
That  is  not  love.  It  is  a  description,  in  gold 
ink,  of  one  of  love's  many  costumes.  Every 
poet  has  provided  one.  All  give  images  and 
none  the  essence.  Yet  that  essence  is  the  sphinx's 
riddle.     Its  only  (Edipus  is  philosophy. 

Philosophy  teaches  that  the  two  fundamental 
principles  of  thought  are  self-preservation  and 
the  preservation  of  the  species.  Every  idea  that 
has  existed  or  does  exist  in  the  human  mind  is 


252  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

the  result  of  the  permutations  and  combinations 
of  these  two  principles  and  their  derivatives. 
Of  the  two  the  second  is  the  stronger.  Its  basis 
is  a  sentiment  which  antiquity  deified,  primitive 
Christianity  scorned,  chivalry  nimbused  and  the 
Renaissance  propelled  over  the  paths  easy  or 
perilous  which  it  has  since  pursued.  But  into 
the  precise  nature  of  that  sentiment  metaphysics 
alone  has  looked.  Plato  was  the  first  that 
analyzed  it.  For  the  few  thereafter  the  rich 
courses  of  his  Banquet  sufficed.  They  regaled 
themselves  on  it.  But  for  humanity  at  large,  to 
whom  the  feast  was  Greek,  there  was  only  the 
descriptions  of  poets  and  the  knowledge,  agree- 
able or  otherwise,  which  personal  experience 
supplied.  In  either  case  the  noumenon,  the 
Ding  an  sich,  the  thing  in  itself,  escaped.  It  was 
too  tenuous  perhaps  for  detention  or  else  too 
obvious.     Plato  himself  did  not  grasp  it. 

The  omission  Schopenhauer  discerned.  Scho- 
penhauer was  an  idealist.  The  forms  of  matter 
and  of  man  he  arranged  in  two  categories,  which 
he  called  Representation  and  Will.  In  his  system 
of  philosophy  everything  not  produced  by  the 
one  is  the  result  of  the  other.  Among  the  effects 
of  the  latter  is  love.1 

This  frivolity — the  term   is  Schopenhauer's — 
is,  he  declared,  a  manifestation  of  the  Genius  of 
1  Die  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstellung. 


THE   LAW  OF  ATTRACTION      253 

the  Species,  who,  behind  a  mask  of  objective 
admiration,  deludes  the  individual  into  mistaking 
for  his  own  happiness  that  which  in  reality  con- 
cerns but  the  next  generation.  Love  is  Will 
projecting  itself  into  the  creation  of  another 
being  and  the  precise  instant  in  which  that  being 
emerges  from  the  original  source  of  whatever  is 
into  the  possibilities  of  potential  existence,  is  the 
very  moment  in  which  two  young  people  begin 
to  fancy  each  other.  The  seriousness  with  which 
on  first  acquaintance  they  consider  each  other  is 
due  to  an  unconscious  meditation  concerning  the 
child  that  they  might  create.  The  result  of  the 
meditation  determines  the  degree  of  their  recipro- 
cal inclinations.  That  degree  established,  the 
new  being  becomes  comparable  to  a  new  idea. 
As  is  the  case  with  all  ideas  it  makes  an  effort  to 
manifest  itself.  In  the  strength  of  the  effort  is 
the  measure  of  the  attraction.  Its  degrees  are 
infinite  while  its  extremes  are  represented  by 
Venus  Pandemos  and  Venus  Urania — ordinary 
passion  and  exalted  affection.  But  in  its  essence 
love  is  always  and  everywhere  the  same,  a  medi- 
tation on  the  composition  of  the  next  generation 
and  the  generations  that  thence  proceed — Medi- 
tatio  compositionis  gcnerationis  futures  e  qua 
iterum  'pendent  innumerce  generationes. 

The  character  of  the  meditation,  its  durability 
or  impermanence,    is,    Schopenhauer   continued, 


254  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

in  direct  proportion  to  the  presence  of  attributes 
that  attract.  These  attributes  are,  primarily, 
physical.  Attraction  is  induced  by  health,  by 
beauty,  particularly  by  youth,  in  which  health 
and  beauty  are  usually  combined,  and  that 
because  the  Genius  of  the  Species  desires  above 
all  else  the  creation  of  beings  that  will  live  and 
who,  in  living,  will  conform  to  an  integral  type. 
After  the  physical  come  mental  and  tempera- 
mental attributes,  all  of  which,  in  themselves, 
are  insufficient  to  establish  love  except  on  con- 
dition of  more  or  less  perfect  conformity  between 
the  parties.  But  as  two  people  absolutely  alike 
do  not  exist,  each  one  is  obliged  to  seek  in  another 
those  qualities  which  conflict  least  with  his  or 
her  own.  In  the  difficulty  of  finding  them  is 
the  rarity  of  real  love.  In  connection  with  which 
Schopenhauer  noted  that  frequently  two  people, 
apparently  well  adapted  to  one  another,  are, 
instead  of  being  attracted,  repelled,  the  reason 
being  that  any  child  they  might  have  would  be 
mentally  or  physically  defective.  The  antipathy 
which  they  experience  is  induced  by  the  Genius 
of  the  Species  who  has  in  view  only  the  interests 
of  the  next  generation. 

To  conserve  these  interests,  nature,  Schopen- 
hauer explained,  dupes  the  individual  with  an 
illusion  of  free  will.  In  affairs  of  the  heart  the 
individual  believes  that  he  is  acting  in  his  own 


THE  LAW  OF  ATTRACTION       255 

behalf,  for  his  own  personal  benefit,  whereas  he 
is  but  acting  in  accordance  with  a  predetermined 
purpose  for  the  accomplishment  of  which  nature 
has  instilled  in  him  an  instinct  that  moves  him 
to  her  ends,  and  so  forcibly  that  rather  than  fail 
he  is  sometimes  compelled  to  sacrifice  what  other- 
wise he  would  do  his  utmost  to  preserve — honor, 
health,  wealth  and  reputation.  It  is  illusion 
that  sets  before  his  eyes  the  deceiving  image  of 
felicity.  It  is  illusion  winch  convinces  him  that 
union  with  some  one  person  will  procure  it. 
Whatever  efforts  or  sacrifices  he  may  consequently 
make  he  will  believe  are  made  to  that  end  only 
yet  he  is  but  laboring  for  the  creation  of  a  pre- 
determined being  who  has  need  of  his  assistance 
to  arrive  into  life.  But,  once  the  work  of  nature 
accomplished,  disenchantment  ensues.  The  illu- 
sion that  duped  him  has  vanished. 

According  to  Schopenhauer  love  is,  therefore, 
but  the  manifestation  of  an  instinct  which,  influ- 
enced by  the  spirit  of  things,  irresistibly  attracts 
two  people  who,  through  natural  conformity,  are 
better  adapted  to  conjointly  fulfil  nature's  aims 
than  they  would  be  with  other  partners.  Scho- 
penhauer added  that  in  such  circumstances, 
when  two  individuals  complete  each  other  and 
common  and  exclusive  affection  possesses  them 
both,  their  affection  represents  a  special  mission 
delegated    by    the    Genius    of   the    Species,    one 


256  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

which  consequently  assumes  a  character  of  high 
elevation.  In  these  cases,  in  addition  to  physical 
adaptation  there  is,  he  noted,  a  mental  and 
temperamental  concordance  so  adjusted  that 
the  parties  alone  could  have  achieved  nature's 
aims.  In  actuating  them  to  that  end  the  Genius  of 
the  Species  desired,  for  reasons  which  Schopen- 
hauer described  as  inaccessible,  the  materializa- 
tion of  a  particular  being  that  could  not  other- 
wise appear.  In  the  series  of  existing  beings 
that  desire  had  no  other  sphere  of  action  than 
the  hearts  of  the  future  parents.  The  latter, 
seized  by  the  impulsion,  believe  that  they  want 
for  themselves  that  which  as  yet  is  but  purely 
metaphysical,  or,  in  other  words,  beyond  the 
circle  of  actually  existing  things.  In  this  manner, 
from  the  original  source  of  whatever  is,  there 
then  darts  a  new  being's  aspiration  for  life 
which  aspiration  manifests  itself  in  the  actuality 
of  things  by  the  love  of  its  potential  parents, 
who,  however,  once  the  object  of  the  Genius  of 
the  Species  attained,  find,  to  their  entire  astonish- 
ment, that  that  love  is  no  more.  But  meanwhile, 
given  that  love,  and  the  potential  parents  may 
become  so  obsessed  by  it  that  they  will  disregard 
anything  which,  ordinarily,  would  interfere. 

This  disregard,  Schopenhauer  further  ex- 
plained, is  due  to  the  Genius  of  the  Species  to 
whom  the   personal   interests  of  the   individual, 


THE   LAW   OF  ATTRACTION      257 

laws,  obstacles,  differences  of  position,  social 
barriers  and  human  conventions  are  so  many 
straws.  Caring  only  for  the  generation  to  be 
lightly  he  dismisses  them.  It  is  his  privilege, 
Schopenhauer  declared.  Our  existence  being 
rooted  in  him,  he  has  over  us  a  right  anterior 
and  more  immediate  than  all  things  else.  His 
interests  are  supreme. 

'That  point,"  Schopenhauer  concluded,  "an- 
tiquity perfectly  understood  when  it  personified 
the  Genius  of  the  Species  as  Eros,  a  divinity  who, 
in  spite  of  his  infantile  air,  is  Hostile,  cruel,  des- 
potic, demoniac  and  none  the  less  master  of  gods 
and  of  man. 

"Tu.  deorum  hominumque  tyranne,  Amor!5" 

For  a  philosopher  Schopenhauer  is  very  graphic. 
It  is  his  great  charm  and  possibly  his  sole  defect. 
In  the  superabundance  of  his  imagination  there 
was  not  always  room  for  the  matter  of  fact. 
Then  too  he  had  a  theory.  Everything  had  to 
yield  to  it.  The  trait,  common  to  all  metaphy- 
sicians, von  Hartmann  shared.  In  the  latter's 
Philosophie  des  Unbewussten  the  Genius  of 
the  Species  becomes  the  Unconscious,  the  same 
force  with  a  different  name,  a  sort  of  anthropo- 
morphic entity  lurking  on  the  back  stairs  of 
Spencer's  Unknowable  and  from  there  ruling 
omnipotently  the  lives  and  loves  of  man. 

Both  systems  are  ingenious.  They  are  pro- 
17 


258  HISTORIA   AMORIS 

found  and  they  are  admirable.  They  have  been 
respectfully  received  by  the  doct.  But  in  their 
metaphysics  of  the  heart  there  is  a  common 
error.  Each  confounds  instinct  with  sentiment. 
Moreover,  assuming  the  validity  of  their  hypo- 
thetical idol,  there  are  phenomena  left  unex- 
plained, the  ordinary  case  for  instance  of  an 
individual  inspiring  but  not  requiting  another's 
love.  In  one  of  the  two  parties  to  it  the  entity 
obviously  has  erred.  According  to  Schopenhauer 
and  von  Hartmann  the  entity  is  the  unique  cause 
of  love,  which  itself  is  an  instinct  that  deludes 
into  the  furtherment  of  nature's  aims.  But  in 
an  unrequited  affection  such  furtherment  is 
impossible.  In  which  event  if  philosophy  is  not 
at  fault  the  entity  must  be;  the  result  being  that 
it  lacks  the  omnipotence  claimed.  Demonstrably 
it  has  some  power,  it  is  even  clear  that  that  power 
is  great,  but  in  the  same  sense  that  occultists  deny 
that  death  is,  so  may  true  lovers  deny  that  the 
entity  exists.  For  them  it  is  not.  Without 
doubt  it  is  the  modern  philosophic  representative 
of  Eros,  but  of  Eros  Pandemos,  son  and  heir  of 
the  primitive  Aphrodite  whom  Plato  described. 
Love  does  not  proceed  from  that  source.  The 
instinct  of  it  certainly  does  but  not  sentiment 
which  is  its  basis.  Commonly  instinct  and 
sentiment  are  confused.  But,  if  a  distinction 
be  effected  between  their  manifestations,  it  will 


THE   LAW  OF  ATTRACTION      259 

be  recognized  that  though  desire  is  elemental  in 
both,  in  instinct  desire  is  paramount  while  in 
sentiment  it  is  secondary  and  frequently,  par- 
ticularly in  the  case  of  young  women,  it  is  dormant 
when  not  absent,  even  though  they  may  be  what 
is  termed  "wildly  in  love."  Instinct  is  a  primi- 
tive and  general  instigation,  coeval  and  contermi- 
nous with  life.  Love  is  a  specific  emotion, 
exclusive  in  selection,  more  or  less  permanent  in 
duration  and  due  to  a  mental  fermentation  in 
itself  caused  by  a  law  of  attraction,  which  Plato 
called  imeros  and  Voltaire  the  myth  of  happiness 
invented  by  Satan  for  man's  despair. 

Imeros  is  the  longing  for  love.  The  meditation 
which  Schopenhauer  described  may  enter  there, 
and  usually  does,  whether  or  not  the  parties 
interested  are  aware  of  it.  But  it  need  not 
necessarily  do  so.  When  Heloise  was  in  her 
convent  there  could  have  been  no  such  medita- 
tion, yet  she  loved  Abailard  as  fervently  as  before. 
Moreover,  when  the  work  of  nature  is  accom- 
plished, disenchantment  does  not,  as  Schopen- 
hauer insisted,  invariably  ensue.  Disenchant- 
ment results  when  the  accomplishing  is  due  to 
instinct  but  not  when  sentiment  is  the  cause. 
Had  instinct  alone  prevailed  humanity  would 
hardly  have  arisen  from  its  primitive  state.  But  the 
evolution  of  the  sentiment  of  love,  in  developing 
the  law  of  attraction,  lifted  men  from  animality, 


260  HISTORIA  AMORIS 

angels  from  the  shames  of  Ishtar,  and  heightened 
the  stature  of  the  soul. 

The  advance  effected  is  as  notable  as  it  is  ob- 
vious, but  its  final  term  is  probably  still  remote. 
Ages  ago  the  sphinx  was  disinterred  from  be- 
neath masses  of  sand  under  which  it  had  brooded 
interminably.  In  its  simian  paws,  its  avian 
wings,  in  its  body  which  is  that  of  an  animal,  in 
its  face  which  it  that  of  a  sage,  before  Darwin, 
before  history,  in  traits  great  and  grave,  the 
descent  of  man  was  told. 

There  remains  his  ascent.  Future  monuments 
may  tell  it.  Meanwhile  evolution  has  not  halted. 
Undiscernibly  but  indefatigably  its  advance 
proceeds.  Its  culmination  is  not  in  existing 
types.  If  humanity  descends  from  apes,  from 
humanity  gods  may  emerge.  The  story  of 
Olympus  is  but  a  tale  of  what  might  have  been 
and  what  might  have  been  may  yet  come  to  pass. 
Even  now,  if  the  story  were  true  and  the  old 
gods  could  return,  it  is  permissible  to  assume 
that  fhey  would  evaporate  to  ghostland  eclipsed. 
The  inextinguishable  laughter  which  was  theirs 
is  absent  from  the  prose  of  life.  Commerce  has 
alarmed  their  afflatus  away.  But  the  telegraph 
is  a  better  messenger  than  they  had,  the  motor 
is  surer  than  their  chariots  of  dream.  In  con- 
temporary homes  they  could  have  better  fare 
than   ambrosia   and   behold   faces   beside   which 


THE   LAW   OF  ATTRACTION      261 

some  of  their  own  might  seem  less  divine.  The 
prodigies  of  electricity  might  appear  to  them  more 
potent  than  the  thunderbolts  of  Zeus  and,  at  the 
sight  of  modern  engines,  possibly  they  would 
recall  the  titans  with  whom  once  they  warred 
and  sink  back  to  their  sacred  seas  outfaced. 

In  the  same  manner  that  we  have  exceeded 
them  it  is  also  permissible  to  assume  that  posterity 
will  exceed  what  we  have  done.  From  its  par- 
turitions gods  may  really  come,  beings  that  is, 
who,  could  contemporaneous  man  remain  to 
behold  them,  would  regard  him  as  he  regards 
the  ape. 

That  advance,  if  effected,  love  will  achieve. 
In  its  history,  already  long,  yet  relatively  brief, 
it  has  changed  the  face  of  the  earth.  It  has  trans- 
formed laws  and  religions.  It  has  reversed  and 
reconstructed  every  institution  human  and  divine. 
As  yet  its  evolution  is  incomplete.  But  when 
the  final  term  is  reached,  then,  doubtless,  the 
words  of  the  Apocalypse  shall  be  realized,  for 
all  things  will  have  been  made  anew. 


FINIS    HISTORLE    AMORIS 


INDEX 


Abailard  and  Heloise,  story 
of,  136-137 

Academe  of  Athens,  46;  of 
Mitylene,  46,  47 ;  its  teach- 
ing to  women,  58-59 

Actixim,  93 

Adam  and  Eve,  married  be- 
fore mated,  1 ;  their  union 
a  Persian  conceit,  1 

Adultery,  as  represented 
by  the  Restoration  Drama- 
tists, 223 

Alaric,  120 

Alchemy,  193 

Alcibiades,  43 

JSmilius  Paultjs,  83 

iEscxTLAPius,  created  to  heal 
the  body,  65 

Affinities,  Elective,  241 

Agreda,  238 

Alexander,  his  bad  influ- 
ence on  Greek  worship  of 
beauty,  59;  his  decensua 
Averni,  63-64;  the  pro- 
totype of  the  Roman  Cae- 
sars, 64 

Albigenses,  the,  175 

Anacreon,  his  treatment  of 
love,  54;  compared  with 
Sappho's  singing,  54 

Anaitis,  5 


Andre,  Maitre,  152 

Andromeda,  the  Friend  of 
Sapho,  47 

Anne,  Queen,  237 

Antoninus  Pius,  108 

Antoninus,  Marcus,  108 

Antony,  90;  his  treatment 
of  Cleopatra,  91 ;  his  con- 
quest by  Cleopatra,  91-92; 
his  marriage  with  Cleo- 
patra, 92;  his  divorce  of 
Octavia,  93;  war  with 
Octavius,  93-94;  deserted 
by  Cleopatra,  93 ;  his  ruin 
by  Cleopatra,  94-95 

Apelles,  61 

Aphrodite,  worship  of,  in 
Greece,  31,  32;  De  Musset 
on,  31;  Homer's  idea  of, 
different  from  Hesiod's,  31 ; 
Hesiod's,  34;  death  of,  in 
Greece,  64 ;  inspired  sculp- 
ture in  her  death,  64; 
Urania,  28-40;  Pandemos, 
55;  Pandemos,  love  in- 
spired by,  67;  Urania, 
love  inspired  by,  67;  de- 
graded by  Rome,  104 

Apis,  104 

Apollonius  of  Tyana,  his 
view  of  Helen  of  Troy,  36 


2(14 


INDEX 


Aquinas,  Thomas,  193 

"Arabian  Nights,  The," 
139-140 

Arabs,  in  Spain,  163-167 

Aragon,  the  source  of  the 
gay  a  cienca,  172 

Aristophanes,  29 ;  Athe- 
nian women  in,  42;  his 
explanation  of  the  duality 
of  love,  69-70 

Aristotle,  61 

Armenia,  its  contribution  to 
Babylon,  3 

Art,  Greek,  bad  influence  of, 
on  the  worship  of  Aphro- 
dite, 32 

Arthur,  King,  story  of,  152 

Asceticism,  its  persistence, 
118-119 

Ashtaroth,  5;  ruled  in 
Judaea,  11;  reviled  by  the 
Hebrew   Prophets,    11,    12 

Aspasia,  the  age  of,  53-64; 
her  relation  with  Pericles, 
56;  her  story,  56-57;  the 
ruler  of  Pericles,  62;  her 
power  over  Pericles,  63; 
what  she  did  for  woman, 
62;  her  revelation  of  wo- 
manly power,  63 

Astarte,  5;  came  to  Rome 
from  Syria,  104 

Astronomy,  relation  to  love, 
68 

Athens,  in  the  age  of  Pericles, 
59-60;  and  Sparta,  duel 
between,  60-61 

Atthis,  lover  of  Sappho,  49 


Attila,  121;    his  death,  121 
Attraction,  the  law  of,  259 
Augustus,  age  of,  101-106; 
his  turpitude,  102 

Baal,  10,  11 

Bacon,  Friar,  193 

Babylon,  influence  of  Semi- 
ramis  on,  3;  influence  of 
Nineveh  on,  3,  4;  contri- 
bution of  Armenia  to,  3; 
the  daughters  of,  4;  the 
inspirer  of  Solomon,  13 

Bacchus,  Antony's  tutelary 
god,  91 

Beatrice  and  Dante,  98; 
Dante's  love  for,  177-180 

Beauty,  the  religion  of 
Greece,  28,  29;  its  wor- 
ship by  the  Greeks,  58-59; 
its  stimulating  force,  70- 
71;  the  secret  of  life,  87; 
the  secret  of  death,  87; 
at  the  beginning  of  the 
Reformation,  201 ;  as  ad- 
vanced by  Ficino  and  ex- 
pounded by  Bembo,  204 
205 ;  may  be  degraded  but 
never  vulgarized,  211 

Bembo,  204 

Be  ranger,   on  Society,   249 

Bertheflede,  story  of, 
125 

Bluebeard,  191-197;  an 
example  of  haematomama, 
194-196 

Boccaccio,  177,  178;  the 
Decameron    of,     188-190; 


INDEX 


265 


his  work  the  signal  for  the 
Renaissance,    189-190 

Bceotia,  the  scene  of  Les- 
bian rites,  46 

Borgias,  the,  200 

Bossuet,  135;  and  Quie- 
tism, 238 

Brahmanism,  its  evil  influ- 
ence on  the  poetry  of  th- 
Vedas,  9 

Broceliaxde,  152 

Brantome,  215,  216,  217,  219 

Buddha,  his  teachings  the 
same  at  Christ's,  113 

Byzance,  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  139;  the  teacher  of 
English  civilization,  141 

Caesar,  Julius,  his  treat- 
ment of  women,  85;  his 
temperament,  89;  Cato's 
opinion  of,  89;  his  treat- 
ment of  Cleopatra,  89 

CAESARS,  the  palace  of, 
abandoned  to  orgies,   106 

Caligula,  his  vileness,   102 

Callicrates,  57 

Calpurnia,  85 

Calypso,  38,  39;  added 
coquetry  to  love,  53 

Carthage,  worship  of  Venus 
in,  6,  7 

Casanova,  Jacques,  248 

Catherine  of  Siena,   132 

Catiline,  his  evil  influence 
on  Rome,  84-85 

Cato,  his  expression  on 
woman's  position  in  Rome, 


79;  his  opinion  of  Caesar, 
89 

Catullus,  his  passing  away 
with  the  republic,  97-98; 
his  songs,  97-98 

Celibacy,  penalized  by  the 
Greeks,  116;  taxed  by  the 
Romans,  116;  inculcated 
by  the  Church,  116;  how 
viewed  variously,  116-117; 
the  ideal  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians, 120 

Cellini,    Benvenuto,    202 

Cervantes,  231 

Chald^ea,  the  ideas  of,  with 
regard  to  Nature,  3;  orig- 
inated picture  of  Pandora, 
40 

Champagne,  Countess  of, 
160 

Charaxus,  story  of  his  love 
for  Rhodopis,  45-46 

Charles  II  of  England,  his 
influence  on  England,  221- 
224;  his  court,  223;  his 
mistresses,  224 

Chastity,  the  pride  of  Spar- 
tan women,  44 

Chateauroux,  Mme.  de, 
247 

Chivalry,  origin  of,  138; 
Muslim,  141;  adopted  by 
the  Church,  142 ;  Age 
of,  how  it  regarded  love, 
145-146;  ridiculed  out  of 
existence,  149;  killed  by 
the  invention  of  gunpowder 
149;     code     of    love     in. 


266 


INDEX 


153-155;  its  merits,  158; 
Courts  of  Love,  155 ;  sub- 
tle case  in,  156 ;  other  eases, 
158-160;  wrongly  derived 
from  Germany,  167;  right- 
ly originated  in  the  Moors, 
167-168 

Christ,  the  new  messenger 
of  love,  111;  the  bringer 
of  good  news,  111-112; 
his  teaching,  112-113;  pre- 
ceded by  Buddha,  113; 
his  opinion  of  woman,  113; 
his  treatment  of  woman, 
115;  women  the  brides  of, 
133 

Christianity,  unable  to  bet- 
ter Homeric  faith,  30;  Ro- 
man hatred  of,  120;  mis- 
interpreted by  the  early 
Church,  135 ;  conquer- 
ed by  Muhammedanism, 
138 

Christians,  Roman  perse- 
cution of,  118-119 

Chrysostom,  on  woman,  128 

Church,  Early  Christian, 
corner-stone  of,  112 

Church,  the,  adopts  the 
code  of  Chivalry,  142 

Church,  the  Early,  its  strug- 
gles, 119 

Church,  the  later,  its  re- 
strictions on  marriage, 
147,148;  its  divorce  laws, 
148 

Cicero,  his  exposition  of 
stoicism,  108 


Cinderella,  story  of,  in  the 
story  of  Rhodopis,   45-46 

Circe,  38,  39 

Clement,  118 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  113 

Cleopatra,  Isis  unveiled, 
86;  her  beauty,  88;  her 
headiness,  89 ;  how  treated 
by  Caesar,  89 ;  how  treated 
by  Antony,  91;  her  con- 
quest of  Antony,  91-92; 
her  ambitious  dreams,  92; 
her  desertion  of  Antony, 
93 ;  her  schemes  for  Octa- 
vius,  94;  her  evil  influ- 
ence on  Antony,  94-95; 
her  death,  96 

Cloister,  the,  128-129 

Constantinople,  the  Fall 
of,  198;  its  consequences, 
199-200 

Convents,  of  Corinth  and 
Miletus,  58 

Copernicus,  200 

Coquetry,  the  kingdom  of, 
by  the  Abbe  d'Aubignac, 
229 

Cordova,  Caliphs  of,  164- 
165 

Corinna,  100 

Corinth,  the  hetairae  of,  56; 
convents  of,  58 

Corneille,  his  Rodrigue  and 
Chimene,  230;  his  Cid, 
230-231 

CORREGGIO,    132 

Courts  of  Love,  155-157 

Crassus,  84 


INDEX 


207 


Crusades,  the,  138 
Cynthia  and  Propertius,  98 

Dante,  and  Beatrice,  98; 
his  idea  of  Fortune,  33; 
his  poetry  founded  in 
Provencal  verse,  172;  his 
early  life  and  career,  177- 
184;  Voltaire's  opinion  of 
181;  Tennyson's  opinion 
of,  181;  his  influence,  182; 
and  Petrarch,  compared, 
186-187 

D'Aubignac,  Abbe,  his  King- 
dom of  Coquetry,  229 

D'Auvergne,    Martial,    159 

Decamerone,  II,  its  scope 
and    influence,    188-90 

Demosthenes,  61 

De  Musset,  on  Aphrodite,  31 

Diane  de  Poytiers,  216-217 

Divans,  the,  of  the  Moors, 
171 

Divorce,  in  Greece  in  Sap- 
pho's time,  43;  not  obliga- 
tory under  the  Caesars,  103; 
how  obtained  under  the 
Csesars,  103;  under  the 
later  Church,  148;  in 
England  under  Henry  VIII, 
204;  in  Italy,  205 

Don  Quixote,  148-149 

Du  Barry,  Duchesse  de,  244, 
247 

Dupleix,  his  account  of 
Margot  of  France,  219 

D'Urfe,  Honore,  his  pas- 
toral, 227 


Ecclesiasticus,  his  view  of 
woman,  10 

Egypt,  position  of  women 
in,  45 ;  influence  of  women 
of,  46;  its  acceptance  of 
beauty,  87-88;  the  gods 
of,  87-88 

Eleanor  of  England,  141 

Eleusinian  mysteries,  57 ; 
Epiphanies,  72-73 

England,  born  of  Shakes- 
peare, 182;  divorce  in,  204- 
205;  Puritan,  221;  Eliza- 
bethan, 221-222;  Early 
Stuart,  221;  Cromwellian, 
222 ;  under  the  Georges,  243 

Ennius,   105 

Epicurus,  29,  61 

Erato,  finds  freedom  in 
Lesbos,  46 

Erinna,  47 

Ermengarde  of  Narbonne, 
160 

Eros,  degraded  by  Rome, 
104 

Euripides,  29 

Europe,  after  the  fall  of 
Rome,  126;  how  influenced 
by  Islam,  141-142;  before 
the  Renaissance,  198-199; 
in  the  eighteenth  century, 
244-245 

Eurydice  and  Orpheus,  30 

Eve,  suggested  by  Hesiod's 
Pandora,  40 

Evolution,  260 

Ewald,  on  "The  Song  of 
Songs,"  15 


268 


INDEX 


Ez  Zahara,  164-165 

Fabiola,  147 

Family,    the,    the    outcome 

of  a  better  treatment  of,  2 
Fenelon,  and  Quietism,  239 
Feudalism,  its  origin,   125; 

its  bad  influence  on  woman, 

146;  marriage  under,  146- 

147 
Ficino,  203-204 
Florence,    in   the   time    of 

Dante,  177 
Fragonard,  246 
Francesca  and   Paolo,    182 
Francois    I,    the     king    of 

Gallantry,  213,  214;     teh 

Court  of,  214 
Fright,    early    man's    first 

sensations,  2 

Gabrielle  d'Estrees,  219- 
220 

Gallantry,  as  defined  by 
Montesquieu,  213;  the 
parody  of  love,  213;  em- 
bellishes vice,  213;  the 
direct  cause  of  the  French 
Revolution,  213;  adopted 
by  Francois  I,  214 

Gautier,  Theophile,  his 
definition  of  love,  251 

Gay  Science,  the,  164-176; 
founded  in  Aragon,  172 

Genius,  ascetic,  117 

George  II  of  England,  244 

Germany,  at  the  time  of 
Louis  XIV,  239-240;  love 


in,  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, 240-244;  aping  of 
Louis  XIV,  241 

Gerson,  his  catalogue  of 
ravishment,  133 

Glycera,  57,  58 

Gorgo,  lover  of  Sappho,  49 

Gospels,  the,  113;  the  lost 
gospels,  113 

Granada,  palaces  of,  165 

Greece,  worship  of  Ishtar 
in,  6;  a  gay  nation,  28; 
and  Judaea,  contrasted,  28 ; 
had  many  creeds,  but  one 
religion,  28;  amours  of, 
a  part  of  its  worship  of 
beauty,  29;  its  gods  real 
to  it,  29-30;  women  in, 
in  Sappho's  time,  41—42; 
beautiful  women  deified  in, 
58;  sale  of  beauty  in,  59; 
its  decadence,  64 

Greek  poetry,  its  splendors, 
61 

Greeks,  the,  their  appre- 
ciation of  this  world's 
gifts,  57 

Gregoire  de  Tours,  119,129 

Gregorovtus,  his  descrip- 
tion of  Rome,   200-201 

Guyon,  Mme.,  and  Quiet- 
ism, 237-239 

Gwynne,  Nell,  224 

Hadrian,  108 
ii.ematomania,  194 
Hallam,     his     opinion     of 
knight-errantry,  161-162 


INDEX 


269 


Harlots,  in  Rome,  80-81 

Hecate,  28 

Helen  of  Troy,  her  place  in 
poetry,  34-35;  her  influ- 
ence on  the  Greek  people, 
35;  her  degradation  an 
evil  influence,  35;  her 
idealization  a  source  of 
inspiration,  35-36 ;  as 
viewed  by  Apollonius  of 
Tyana,  36 ;  and  Menelaus, 
36-37;  and  Paris,  37;  as 
a  man's  property,  37 

Henry  IV,  of  France,  218; 
and  Gabrielle  d'Estrees, 
219-220 

Heph.estos,  28 

Herodotus,  on  Ishtar,  5,  6 

Hesiod,  his  idea  of  Aphro- 
dite, 31;  Eve  suggested  by 
his  Pandora,  40 

Hetaira,  the,  55 

Hetairje,  the  girls  of  the, 
56-57 

Heloise  and  Abelard,  story 
of,  136-137 

Heptameron,   the,   209-210 

Hermas,  118 

Hermits,  the  outcome  of 
Christianity,  116 

Home,  the  outcome  of  a 
better  treatment  of  woman, 
2 

Homer,  28;  his  influence  on 
Greek  thought,  29;  his 
faith  in  beauty,  29;  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  of,  30;  his 
idea     of     Aphrodite,     31; 


Odyssey  and  Iliad,  mor- 
ality of,  38;  the  sirens  of, 
39-40 

Honor,  the  chivalrous  mean- 
ing of,  143 

Horace,  his  view  of  the 
Iliad,  38;  compared  with 
Sappho,  47;  "the  little 
fat  man,"  98-99;  his  art 
as  sung  by  Ponsard,  99-100 

Horus,  87 

Hugo,  Victor,  213 

Huns,  their  invasion  of 
Rome,  121 

Iliad,  the,  its  view  of  woman, 

62-£3 
Immortality,  love  of,  70 
Infanticide,  in  Rome,  118 
Inquisition,  founded,  176 
Ishtar,  her  influence  in  the 
world,  4;    history  of,  5,  6; 
worship  of,  identical  with 
the  Hindu  Kama-dasi,  6; 
in  Greece,  6;  rites  of,  6,  7 
Isis,  87,  88 
Islam,      its      influence     on 

Europe,  141-142 
Islamism,  treatment  of  wo- 
men under,  169-170 

Jehovah,  the  evolution  of, 
among  the  Jews,  11,  12 

Jews,  their  view  of  woman, 
10;  their  prophets  reviled 
the  worship  of  Ashtaroth, 
11,  12;  evolution  of  Jeho- 
vah   among   the,    11,    12; 


270 


INDEX 


their  message  for  Rome, 
110-111 

Joy,  the  Parliaments  of,  150- 
163 

Judaea,  did  not  honor  wom- 
en, 10;  the  position  of  the 
patriarch  in,  10;  and 
Greece,  contrasted,  28 

Julius  II,  202 

Juvenal,  103 

Kama-dasi,  the  Hindu,  iden- 
tical with  worship  of  Ish- 
tar,  6 

Knighthood,  its  meaning, 
144 

Knight-errantry,    161-162 

Koran,  a  precept  in,  168- 
169 

Laced^emon,  63;  its  effect 
on  Sparta  and  Greece,  63 

Lais,  her  epitaph,  58;  wealth 
of,  59 

Laura  and  Petrarch,  183- 
188;  the  quality  of  her 
love,  187-188;  her  position 
between  Dante  and  Boc- 
caccio, 188 

La  Valliere,  232-233 

Leonora  D'Este,  208;  her 
character,  210 

Leo  X,  201;  his  expression 
of  the  Papacy,  202 

Lepidus,  90 

Lesbos,  the  women  of,  44- 
45;  women  of,  influenced 
by  Egypt,  46 


L'Estoile,  Pierre  de,  219, 
220 

Life,  Definition  of,  70 

London,  in  the  Georgian 
period,  243 

Longinus,  his  reverence  for 
Sappho,  47 

Longueville,  Mme.  de,  245- 
246 

Lorenzo,  the  Magnificent, 
200 

Louis  XIV,  of  France,  232- 
234;  his  mistresses,  232- 
236;     his  kingdom,  236 

Louis  XV,  of  France,  247 

Love,  absent  from  Eden,  1; 
evolution  of,  in  history,  7, 
8;  evil  influence  of  theol- 
ogy on,  8;  the  Gospel  of, 
"The  Song  of  Songs" 
viewed  as,  13,  14;  its 
change  in  Sappho's  time, 
54;  Plato's  view  of,  65-66; 
in  the  Phadrus  of  Plato, 
66;  in  the  Symposium  of 
Plato,  66;  argument  on,  by 
Plato,  66-67;  not  every 
love  divine,  67;  two  loves 
in  the  human  body,  67; 
in  relation  to  astronomy, 
68;  religion,  intermediary 
of,  68 ;  duality  of,  explained 
by  Aristophanes,  68;  Soc- 
rates's  statement  of  the 
essence  of,  69-70;  exerted 
in  happiness  in  immortality, 
70 ;  higher  mysteries  of,  71 ; 
its    value    to   life,    71-72; 


INDEX 


271 


how  regarded  by  Plato,  74 ; 
the  new  ideal  of,  through 
Christ,  111;  dispersed  the 
darkness  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  138;  how  regarded 
in  the  Age  of  Chivalry,  145^ 
146 ;  exalted  under  Feudal- 
ism, 148;  joy  of,  its  human- 
izing influence,  150;  Courts 
of,  155-157;  code  of,  in 
chivalry,  153-155 ;  its 
merits,  158;  cases  of,  in 
chivalry,  158-160;  a  pic- 
ture of,  in  mediaeval  times, 
162-163;  the  religion  of 
the  troubadours,  175;  to 
Petrarch,  188;  to  Dante, 
189 ;  as  viewed  by  Boccac- 
cio, 188-190;  as  viewed  by 
Plato,  203;  Platonic,  205- 
206;  as  influenced  by 
Platonism,  205-207;  as  in- 
fluenced by  Venice ,  207 ;  as 
shown  by  Marguerite  of 
France,  209-210;  a  high 
summit  reached  in  Michael 
Angelo  and  Vittoria  Co- 
lonna,  212;  non  injeriora 
secutus,  212;  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  213-236; 
its  modern  history  opens 
with  laughter,  213;  its 
melody  in  Platonism,  its 
parody  in  gallantry,  213; 
always  educational,  213;  in 
Spain,  Germany,  France, 
and  England  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  214;  under 


Francois  I,  215;  under 
Henry  IV,  of  France,  218- 
222 ;  its  degradation  under 
the  Restoration,  224;  the 
Scudery  map  of,  228-230; 
in  the  eighteenth  century, 
237-250 ;  in  Germany  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  241 ;  the 
dawn  of  its  rebirth  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  245; 
the  lowest  depths  of,  249; 
changes  in  form  but  never 
in  character,  250;  as  de- 
fined by  Gautier,  251 ;  the 
subject  for  philosophy,  251 ; 
its  basis,  252;  first  ana- 
lyzed by  Plato,  252 ;  its  na- 
ture elaborated  by  Scho- 
penhauer, 252-257;  a 
manifestation  of  the  Gen- 
ius of  Species,  253;  its  na- 
ture is  will  for  the  purpose 
of  creation,  253;  used  by 
Nature  as  a  means  to  an 
end,  254-255 ;  Nature's 
veil  of  illusion,  255;  the 
manifestation  of  an  in- 
stinct, 255;  its  purpose, 
the  materialization  of  a 
particular  being,  256 ; 
wrongly  diagnosed  by  Scho- 
penhauer, 259-260;  its 
advance  in  evolution,  260; 
modern,  260-261 
Ixdvers,  Socrates's  ideal,  171 

LtJCRETIA,    82 

Lucrezia  Borgia,  204 
LucuLLUS,  84 


272 


INDEX 


Luther,  the  true  founder  of 
modern  society,  201 

Lycurgus,  his  laws  on  mar- 
riage, 44 

Macaulat,  222,  223 

Macon,  second  council  of, 
on  woman,  127 

Macrobius,  his  description 
of  Roman  Saturnalia,  75- 
76 

Maoenas,  lackey  of  Augus- 
tus, 102 

Mahabharata,  the,  The  Ve- 
dic  history  of  love,  7,  8 

Man,  early,  his  attitude  to- 
ward Nature,  2,  3;  pleas- 
ure not  known  to  him,  2 

Manu,  laws  of,  on  marriage,  8 

Margot,  wife  of  Henry  IV 
of  France,  218-219 

Marguerite  of  France,  208 ; 
208-210;  the  Heptameron 
of,  209-210 

Marius,  120 

Marriage,  laws  of  Manu 
on,  8;  position  of  women 
in  Greece  in,  42 ;  in  Sparta, 
44;  in  Rome,  79-80;  un- 
der the  Caesars,  103;  Lex 
Pappea  Poppcea,  103;  as 
viewed  by  the  Early  Chris- 
tian Church,  114;  St. 
Sebastian  on,  114;  St. 
Augustine  on,  114;  made 
incumbent  by  Hebrew  law, 
116;  St.  Paul  on  the  dignity 
of,    119-120;      under   the 


feudal  system,  146-147; 
how  restricted  by  the  later 
Church,  147-148;  in  days 
of  chivalry,  157 

Mary  Magdalen,  115 

Matrimony,  as  interpreted 
by  later  Platonism,   205 

Medievalism,  the  prelude 
to  the  Renaissance,  198 

Medici,  Catherine  de,  217 

Menander,  57 

Menelaus,  and  Helen  of 
Troy,  36-37 

Michael  Angelo,  202;  his 
love  for  Vittoria  Colonna, 
211-212 

Mignet,  213 

Miletus,  convents  of,  58 

Minstrels,  the,  164 

Mithra,  104 

Modesty,  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  246 

Moliere,  his  ridicule  of  the 
Precieuses,  227 

Molinos,135;  his  Quietism, 
237 

Moloch,  10,  11 

Monasteries,  128-129 

Montespan,  Marquise  de, 
234-235 

Montesquieu,  his  definition 
of  gallantry,  213 

Moors,  in  Spain,  163-167; 
their  learning  and  poetry, 
166;  originated  chivalry, 
167-168;  their  power  in 
Europe,  168;  their  treat- 
ment of  women,   169-170 


INDEX 


273 


Morbihan,  the  paintings  in, 
196 

Moses,  his  view  of  woman, 
10,11 

Moslems,  chivalry  of,  141 

Muhammed,  conquers  Per- 
sia, 139;  the  two  things 
he  really  cared  for,  168 

Nature,  early  man;  attitude 

toward,  2 
Nausicaa,  38 
Nebuchadnezzar,  41 
Nepenthe,      an      Egyptian 

drug,  36 
Nineveh,    its    influence    on 

Babylon,  3,  4 
Nostradamus,  153,  155 
Nuns,  131 

Octavtus,  90;  a  model 
citizen,  93;  his  opinion  of 
Cleopatra,  93;  war  with 
Antony,  93-94;  his  design 
against  Cleopatra,  95;  de- 
feated by  Cleopatra's  death, 
95-96 

Odtsseus,  38;  Homer's 
service  to,  38 

Odyssey,  the,  its  view  of 
woman,  63 

Olympus,  kindly  to  its  wor- 
shippers, 30;  influence  of 
the  gods  of,  on  Greek  mind, 
33 

Omphale,  56 

Orpheus,  and  Eurydice,  30 

Osiris,  87,  88 


Ovid,  his  picture  of  Sappho, 
51;  his  "Art  of  Love," 
100;  poet  of  pleasure,  100- 
101 ;  his  banishment,  101 

Pallas,  59 

Palmer,  Barbara,  224 

Pandora,  40;  picture  of,  of 
Chaldsean  origin,  40 

Pantheon,  Roman,  a  lu- 
panar,  105 

Papacy,  the,  its  war  against 
the  troubadours,  176;  as 
expressed   by  Leo  X,   202 

Paris,  and  Helen,  37 

Paris,  love  in,  under  Fran- 
cois I,  215 

Patriarch,  the,  his  position 
in  Judaea,  10 

Paul  III,  202 

Paul,  St.,  his  humiliation  of 
woman,  114;  on  the  dig- 
nity of  marriage,  119-120; 
his  view  of  Christianity, 
134-135 

Pericles,  his  relation  with 
Aspasia,  56;  his  deifica- 
tion, 61 ;  Age  of,  the  period 
of  Greek  decline,  61 

Perseus,  on  Roman  thought 
and  life,  104 

Petrarch,  his  poetry,  172  ; 
and  Laura,  183-188  ;  and 
Dante  compared,  186-187; 
his  love  for  Laura,  187- 
188 

Ph^edrus,  73-74;  its  theory 
of  Beauty,  73-74 


274 


INDEX 


Phaon,  his  relation  with 
Sappho,  49-51 

Pheidias,  influence  of  his 
Zeus  on  ^Emilius  Paulus, 
31-32 

Philip  of  Macedon,  63 

Philippus,  57 

Phoenicia,  furnished  girls 
for  Greek  harems,  6 

Phryne,  57;  as  Aphrodite, 
57;  her  acquital  before 
the  Areiopagus,  57-58 ; 
Praxiteles's  statue  of,  58; 
her  wealth,  59 

Pindar,  61 

Plato,  his  opinion  of  Sappho, 
47 ;  healer  of  the  mind,  65 ; 
his  teaching,  65;  his  view 
of  love,  65-66;  his  Phw- 
drus  and  Symposion,  65- 
66;  his  Phcedrus,  73-74; 
his  theory  of  beauty  in  the 
Phcedrus,  73-74;  his  Re- 
public, 202 ;  his  Symposion, 
203 

Platonism,  its  view  of  matri- 
mony interpreted,  205;  its 
influence  on  love,  206-207 ; 
its  three  saints,  201;  the 
melody  of  love,  213 ;  beau- 
tifies virtue,  213 

Pleasure,  a  later  growth  in 
man,  2 

Pompadour,  Mme.  de,  247 

Pompeia,  85 

Ponsard,  his  poem  on  Hor- 
ace, 99-100 

Praxiteles,   his  Aphrodite, 


32-33 ;  his  statue  of  Phryne, 

58 
Propertius,  and  Cynthia,  98 
Provencal,  poetry,  171-172; 

the    foundation   of   Dante 

and  Petrarch,  172 
Provence,     its    troubadou- 

rian  dogmas,  175-176 
Psyche,  story  of,  30 
Publius  Claudius,  85 

querouaille,  louise  de  la, 

224 
Quietism,   the  teaching  of, 

237-239 

Radegonde,  Story  of,  130- 
131 

Rambouillet,  Hotel  de,  225 

Rambouillet,  Madame  de, 
225-226;  her  influence, 
227 

Raphael,  202 

Ravaillac,  221 

Raymond,  Lord,  of  Castel- 
Roussillon,  162-163 

Reformation,  the,  its  influ- 
ence on  love,  201 

Religion,  love's  interme- 
diary, 68 

Renaissance,  the,  due  to 
Greek  thought,  60 ;  woman 
under,  151-152;  198-212; 
the  three  Graces  of,  208 

Renan,  on  "The  Song  of 
Songs,"  15 

Restoration,  the  time  of, 
222-223 


INDEX 


275 


Retz,  Gilles  de,  191-197 

Revolution,  the  French, 
the  effect  of  Gallantry,  213 

Rhodopis,  story  of  her  re- 
lation with  Charaxus,  45- 
46;  the  original  of  Cinder- 
ella, 45 

Richelieu,  248 

Roland,  the  story  of,  142- 
143 

Romans,  their  primal  char- 
acteristics, 75-76 ;  the 
Saturnalia  of,  75-76 

Rome,  mission  of,  75;  love 
secondary  in,  75 ;  its  treat- 
ment of  the  strange  gods, 
76-77 ;  its  attitude  to  slaves 
and  children,  77 ;  its  treat- 
ment of  women,  77-78 
St.  Augustine's  view  of,  82 
puritan  in  poverty,  82-83 
Sylla's  immoral  influence 
on,  83-84;  Catiline's  bad 
influence  on,  84-85;  the 
Triumvirate  of,  90;  in  the 
Augustan  age,  101-106; 
amusements  of,  101 ;  under 
the  Emperors,  101-109; 
degraded  Eros  into  Cupid, 
104;  degraded  Aphrodite 
into  Venus,  104 ;  later  gods 
of,  104-105;  degraded  un- 
der Imperialistic  sway,  105 ; 
its  Pantheon  a  lupanar, 
105;  its  delight  in  sensu- 
ality, 106-107;  its  palaces 
abandoned  to  orgies,  106- 
107 ;  more  abandoned  than 


Nineveh  or  Babylon,  108; 
Imperialistic,  compared 
with  age  of  Pericles,  109; 
first  barbarian  who  invad- 
ed, 110;  the  message  of 
the  Jews  for,  110-111; 
persecution  of  early  Chris- 
tians, 118-119;  its  fall,  120; 
its  hatred  of  Christianity, 
120;  invaded  by  the  Huns, 
121;  its  antiquity  dead, 
121;  the  elements  that 
went  to  make  its  greatness, 
125;  its  dissolution,  125; 
European  darkness  after 
fall  of,  126-127;  as  de- 
scribed by  Gregorovius, 
200-201 ;  under  the  Papacy, 
201 

Round  Table,  Knights  of, 
152 

Roussillon,  Gerard  de, 
159 

Ruy  Blas,  157-158 

Sade,  Marquis  de,  248- 
249 

Salamis,  battle  of,  60;  its 
influence  on  Greece,  60 

Salvation,  in  weakness,  134 

Sappho,  41-45;  how  appre- 
ciated by  the  ancients,  47; 
the  girl  Plato,  47;  poems 
of,  48 ;  sources  of  Odes  of, 
48;  portraits  of,  48-49; 
lover  of  Atthis,  49;  lover 
of  Gorgo,  49;  contem- 
porary knowledge  of,  49; 


276 


INDEX 


her  relation  with  Phaon, 
49-50;  as  told  by  Swin- 
burne, 50;  as  pictured  by 
Ovid,  51;  emancipated 
love,  53;  her  singing  of 
love,  54;  her  influence  on 
the  relation  of  women,  55 

Sauval,  215 

Scheherazade,  140 

Schopenhauer,  his  expo- 
sition of  love,  252-257 ;  his 
error,  259-260 

Science,  the  Gay,  150-151; 
164-176;  founded  in  Ara- 
gon,  172 

Scudery,  Mile,  de,  227;  her 
map  of  love,  228-230 

Semiramis,  her  influence  on 
Babylon,  3 

Seneca,  103;  his  condem- 
nation of  vice,   108-109 

Seville,  palaces  of,  165 

Shakespeare,  his  influence, 
182 

Sirens,  the  Homeric,  39-40 

Slaves  in  Rome,  77 

Society,  after  the  fall  of 
Rome,  126-127 

Socrates,  his  statement  of 
the  essence  of  love,  69-70 ; 
his  ideal  lovers,  71-72;  his 
discourse  on  love,  70-72; 
117 

Solomon,  his  view  of  woman 
11;     wholly  Babylonic,  13 

Solon,  his  opinion  of  Sappho, 
47 

"Song  of  Songs,"  The,  the 


Gospel  of  love,  13,  14; 
exposition  of,  as  a  drama  of 
love,  14,  15;  reset  as  a  love 
drama,  15-27 

Sophocles,  61 

Sorrow,  a  sin,  150 

Spain,  the  home  of  Moorish 
chivalry,  170-171;  at  the 
close  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  231-233 ;  Court  of, 
at  end  of  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, 232 

Sparta,  condition  of  women 
in,  43-44;  and  Athens, 
rivalry  between,  60-61 

St.  Augustine,  his  view  of 
Rome,  82;  on  marriage, 
114 

St.  Basilius,  his  praise  of 
Homer,  38 

Stoicism,  in  Rome,  108 

Strabo,  on  Ishtar,  5,  6;  his 
view  of  Sappho,  47,  49 

St.  Sebastian,  on  marriage, 
114 

Suetonius,  his  character  of 
Caligula,  102;  his  Prince 
and  Beast,  107 

Swinburne,  compared  with 
Sappho,  47;  his  "Ode  to 
Aphrodite,"  50 

Sylla,  his  moral  destruction 
of  Rome,  83-84 

Tacitus,  on  women,  81 
Tanit,  5 

Tasso,  210;  his  love  for 
Leonora    d'Este,    210-211 


INDEX 


277 


Tenderness  -  on  -  Sympathy, 

in  Germany,  241 
Tennyson,    his    opinion    of 

Dante,  181 
Tertullian,  103 
Thais,  monument  to,  58 
Thebes,  63;  its  fall,  61 
Themistocles,  son  of,  61-62 
Theology,  its  base  influence 

on  love,  8 
Theresa,  St.,  story  of,  132- 

133 
Tiberius,  his  laws  on  women, 

81 
Tournaments,  144-145 
Tristram  and  Isaud,  144 
Troubadours,  the,  172-174; 
their    religion,     175;     op- 
posed by  the  Papacy,  176 

Vedas,  the,  on  love,  7,  8; 
the  poetry  of,  deformed  by 
Brahmanism,  9 

Venice,  its  evil  influence  on 
love,  207 

Ventadour,  Bernard  de, 
173 

Venus,  worship  of,  6;  name 
of  Hebrew  origin,  7;  her 
indifference  to  mortal  as- 
pirations, 33-34 

Veronese,  132 

Versailles,  232,  235 

Vespasian,  108 

Virgin,  the,  aspirations  to, 
133;  the  Regina  ange- 
lorum,  133;  reflected  in 
art,  134 


Virginia,  82 

Vittoria  Colonna,  208;  her 

character,  211 
Voltaire,  his  opinion  of  the 

Divina   Cammed ia,    181 

Walters,  Lucy,  224 

Westphalia,  Peace  of,  240 

Widows,     under     code     of 
chivalry,  161 

Wives,  treatment  of,  in  Sap- 
pho's  time,   53-54 

Woman,  early  treatment  of, 
1,  2;  family  life,  the  out- 
come of  better  treatment  of, 
2 ;  common  property  once, 
2;  man's  early  treatment 
of,  2;  not  honored  in 
Judaea,  10;  incarnated  sin 
to  the  Jews,  10 ;  as  viewed 
by  Ecclesiasticus,  10;  as 
viewed  by  Moses,  10,  11; 
as  viewed  by  Solomon,  11; 
worshipped  in  the  Renais- 
sance, 15;  a  man's  chattel, 
37;  as  viewed  by  Homer, 
39-40;  beginning  of  her 
emancipation,  40 ;  what 
she  represented  in  Greece, 
58 ;  her  development 
through  Aspasia,  62;  how 
viewed  by  the  Iliad,  62- 
63;  how  viewed  by  the 
Odyssey,  62-63;  treatment 
of,  by  Rome,  77-78;  her 
legal  and  actual  position 
in  Rome,  78;  her  suprem- 
acy in  Rome,  78-79;    her 


278 


INDEX 


position  stated  by  Cato, 
79;  position  of,  in  Rome 
compared  with  her  po- 
sition in  Greece,  79;  ham- 
pered by  Roman  laws,  80- 
81;  Christ's  opinion  of, 
113;  little  thought  of  by 
St.  Paul,  114;  her  treat- 
ment of  Christ,  115;  con- 
dition of,  in  dark  ages,  127; 
how  regarded  by  the  second 
council  of  Macon,  127;  St. 
Chrysostom  on,  128;  re- 
treat to  cloister,  129; 
legend  of  a,  131-132;  her 
enfranchisement  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  135-136;  her 
condition  in  the  Crusade 
times,  141;  the  arbiter  of 
knightly  honor,  143-144; 
badly  influenced  by  Feudal- 
ism, 146;  Courts  of  Love 
for,  155-157;  Code  of 
Love  for,  153-155;  mar- 
riage of,  in  days  of  chiv- 
alry, 157;  her  position  in 
days  of  chivalry,  158; 
knightly  homage  for,  158- 
159;     widows  under  code 


of  chivalry,  161;  position 
of,  in  Italy,  161;  beloved 
by  Mohammed,  168;  the 
Koran  on,  168-169 ;  Moor- 
ish treatment  of,  169-170; 
seclusion  under  Islamism, 
169-170;  her  position  in 
Italy  in  Bembo's  time, 
204-205 
Women,  lost  in  the  deluge, 
10;  in  Greece  in  Sappho's 
time,  41-42;  of  Lesbos, 
44-45;  Sappho's  influence 
on,  55;  deification  of,  in 
Greece,  58;  Tacitus  on, 
81;  laws  of  Tiberius  on, 
81 ;  married,  reverenced 
in  Rome,  81-82;  Caesar's 
treatment  of,  85 ;  as  brides 
of  Christ,  133 ;  in  Germany 
in  eighteenth  century,  242 ; 
morals  of,  in  Germany, 
242;  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  246 

Xantippe,  117 

Zend  Avesta,  the  decalogue 
of  the,  150 


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